LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
My Queer Life: Out of Style |
by Michael Thomas Ford |
Im just going to have to face itI have straight hair. And no, I dont mean that it wont hold a perm, not that Ive ever tried. I mean that its hopelessly heterosexual. Ive tried to have gay hair. Ive gone to expensive salons in the trendy part of town, where Ive paid seventy bucks to have my hair "styled" by pouty young men with French names. But no matter how much they tease it and snip at it, gel it and blow it dry, it always looks the same. After an hour of fussing and trimming, the weary hairdresser looks at my reflection in the mirror and sighs. "Well, its nice and short," he says, trying to feign enthusiasm. While other gay men walk down the streets with their freshly-buzzed flattops and stylish George Clooney-inspired cuts, my hair always looks like I just woke up. Plagued by several inconveniently-placed cowlicks, my head invariably resembles that of a baseball player who has worn his lucky hat for an entire season, even when Ive just washed it. I suppose I shouldnt be surprised by this. The truth is, Im just not very good at the whole gay style thing. For example, I do not look fetching in black turtlenecks. They make me feel as if Im suffocating, and I spend all day picking at the neck, convinced that my throat is closing up. Nor do I make any designer clothes look good. They may appear fine on the manikins, or on the models in catalogs, but once I put them on they sag in all the wrong places and instantly take on an air of garage sale out-of-datedness. I have friends who are experts at style. They go shopping and return with three different articles of clothing and some fun accessories that can be combined into twenty-two different ensembles suitable for any occasion. When I go shopping, I spend all day wandering around in a daze and come back with some jeans, a flannel shirt, and a pair of wool socks, all of which look exactly like the other jeans, flannel shirts, and wool socks already crowding my drawers. Displaying my finds to my friends, they shake their heads sadly while I cringe in shame. From time to time Ill go out on a limb and try something that Im told is all the rage in gay circles. I should know better. When Marky Mark made those Calvin Klein boxer-brief underwear a fetish for homos everywhere, I dutifully bought some. I thought they would be daring. They werent. They were scary. While Marky filled them out beautifully, on me they resembled some weird kind of diaper. Lying on my bed trying to feel sexy, I felt more like the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. As for some of my other ill-fated clothing investments, I will say only that the money I spent on those leather shorts would have been better off in my retirement account. Now that there are all of these catalogs especially for gay men, I feel even worse about all of this. I should just throw these things away when they appear in my mailbox, but of course I dont. Instead, I sit there turning the pages and looking at the men wearing interesting clothing as if it were the easiest thing in the world. On them, nipple-revealing tank tops look natural. On me, they look like halter tops. The models sport those multicolored Freedom Rings with aplomb, making both a fashion and a political statement. I know that on me they would hang like some decrepit rainbow. The catalog people lean jauntily against their kitchen counters, cheerfully eating cereal while wearing only silk pajama bottoms. If I did that, Id end up with milk stains down my crotch within seconds. Still, I cant help looking at people I will never be wearing clothes I will never wear. I stare at them sitting in bed with their equally-fashionable lovers, pulling playfully on one anothers socks, or perhaps running around outside with their golden retriever, whose fur is always as shiny and bouncy as that of his masters. I look down at my old boxer shorts and over at my dog, who generally smells like a pond and whose fur is never bouncy, and wonder where we went wrong. Fashion disaster that I am, its probably a good thing that I can stay at home and write for a living. If I had to go out into the world, I wouldnt know what to wear. I havent owned a suit, or even a dinner jacket, in a decade. I cant remember how to tie a tie, since I havent had to wear one since Easter Sunday the year I was eight. There is nothing in my closet even remotely resembling "dressy" shoes. While Im perfectly happy with my basic wardrobe of jeans and T-shirts, I live in fear of the day when I get invited to something that requires knowing how to dress. I have this recurring dream where Ive been nominated for an Oscar for some breathtaking screenplay Ive written. Everyone loves it, and theres no doubt that Ill win. Its the moment Ive dreamed of for years. Only I cant go, because I dont have anything to wear. As the first openly- gay man to win the Best Original Screenplay award, I want to make an amazing impression on America and the world by giving a rousing acceptance speech and showing everyone that, as a group, we are witty, intelligent people who bring magic into their lives. But none of the current hip designers want me to sport their creations, because they know Ill just make a mess of it. Left with the contents of my own closet, I just know that when I ascended the stage, what everyone would be staring at would be the scuffed-up work boots and faded L. L. Bean shirt I threw on before rushing out the door. "He cant be gay," they would whisper to one another as the horrified award presenters dripping with style try to hustle me quickly offstage. "Look at that hair." Michael Thomas Ford, the author of Alec Baldwin Doesnt Love Me & Other Trials from My Queer Life, is a regular contributor to LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 8, No. 15, November 20, 1998. |