ROMANCE PROBLEMS

I don’t often blog a review about a book I can’t recommend. As a writer who has had a book published, I’m well aware of how any and every bad review can sting, whether in The New York Times Book Review or as a one-star comment on Goodreads. Sure, one weighs more than the other, but I still would be upset if Tamara in Tallahassee thought my book sucked. I want to support writers, I want to be part of getting people excited about reading, I want to stick to saying nothing when I don’t have anything nice to say.

 

But I make exceptions.

 

Sometimes even nice people are driven to react. 

 

It’s not that I hated Red, White & Royal Blue. It was okay. Mostly. The last fifty pages were, frankly, painful. I kept putting it down. Please don’t make me read more. Please make it go away. There’s no harm in being injected with sugar water, but there’s no merit either. To repeat, I didn’t hate it. I just wanted to tear pages out. Seriously. But it was a library copy. I don’t damage library books; I won’t even dog-ear a page.  

 

This isn’t going to be a review, after all. Instead, the book serves as an excuse for me to wonder about my place in the publishing world, to question who can/should write gay characters—if there is, in fact, still a place for them on pages—and to give romance readers a bit of a shake.

 

My first book was published in 2008. Middle grade fiction. It did all right in terms of sales for a smaller Canadian press. All copies eventually sold and the publisher told me they wouldn’t run another printing. You can still get an e-copy here. If you do so, I encourage you to stay silent if you don’t like it. Alas, you won’t be able to tear pages either. 

 

It’s my only book so far, but not for lack of effort. I’ve completed several manuscripts in various genres but no more book deals. I’m a one-hit wonder, but that probably stretches the definition of hit. One manuscript I’m particularly proud of is called Dead in Gay Years, a humorous comeuppance for a onetime gay god who’s suddenly dumped and is now a forty-something with a dad bod and no prospects in dating, in work, in anything. 

It’s been hard to query to agents. LGBTQ fiction is considered a niche market and there’s not a demand for books by gay cisgender white men. I’m told that status makes me “privileged” even though I spent most of my life feeling oppressed. I hid and “passed” (as straight) to minimize bullying. I feared death from AIDS. I worried about losing my job or my credibility as a teacher and then a principal. In “safe” environments such as gay bars, I was shunned as so many gays artfully perfected blank stares that looked through me in order to eye up someone hotter, sexier, a worthier conquest. At no point did I feel that being a white gay man was a privilege and yet now outsiders have deemed my life as such. I’m lumped with all other guys who are white, gay and cisgendered. There is no effort to consider how different I actually was.

 

I realize non-white, non-cisgender queer people always had greater struggles, but our community continues to be divided, both internally and externally. Apparently, I had it good. 

 

For my next manuscript, I’m considering a gay romance. It’s a calculated decision. Book deals are business decisions and M/M romance sells. Ironically, most M/M romance writers are women, often opting for gender-vague names like Chris or Kelly or choosing to use initials instead, à la J.K. Rowling or J.R.R. Tolkien. Then again, it seems most M/M romance readers are women. Presumably, they don’t need to read gay male characters from an authentically gay male viewpoint. Characters arising from a female connotation of a gay male might be are just fine.

 

That’s a lot of background—and ranting—to explain why I gave Red, White & Royal Blue (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2019) a try and forced myself to finish it, leaving all pages intact. It’s written by Casey McQuistin—yes, a woman—and it’s doing extraordinarily well. I’ve seen several agents specifically say, “I want the next Red, White & Royal Blue on their wish lists. I needed to see what all the fuss was about. I hoped to come away from it and say, “Yes! I can do this! I can be the next Casey McQuistin”…only with a penis, some pesky ear hair and a looming colonoscopy appointment I keep putting off.

 

From the outset, I didn’t like the premise. I found it ridiculous. The novel is about a romance between a prince in the British royal family and the First Son of a U.S. president. Prince Harry and Donald Trump, Jr.? Okay, I just made it icky. The story doesn’t strive to aggressively offend readers. Still, as far-fetched as the premise is, it’s also too cute, too convenient.  

 

As I struggled to stick with the book, I kept wondering why romance novels so often focus on royalty. If we’re so concerned with labeling people as privileged, why continue to spin tales about Prince Charming? Do we not grow beyond who we were at five years old, listening to parents and kindergarten teachers reading us picture books with princes and princess? Don’t we get past Disneyfied tales involving Cinderella, Princess Elsa and Ariel? 

 

While agents say they don’t want stories wherein the prince saves the princess, I’m not sure it’s progressive or even feminist to be falling for princes under any circumstance.[1] Assuming they are filthy rich, there’s still an aspect of being rescued. Pay my mortgage, sweet prince! Or, at least, both our dinners. Royal stories will always seem old-fashioned because monarchies are outdated. With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, aren’t most of us done with the notion of a British monarchy or any monarchy? I write fiction, but I strive for it to be realistic fiction. I can’t stomach writing (or reading) romance that’s pure fantasy. 

 

Casey McQuistin can rest assured, I’m not going to dethrone her, even if some agent or editor finally decided to take a chance on another—yawn—gay, white cisgendered male author. I can’t possibly write about royal lives unless there’s a humiliating dethroning. I wouldn’t bring back the guillotine scene, but the once-beloved, never-to-be James XXVI would go through a spell of rationing generic peanut butter and saltines and maybe I’d throw in bed bugs and gonorrhea out of spite. (Weren’t royals plagued with STDs? Why doesn’t that factor into the royal romance trope?) 

 

In general, I struggle with the romance genre because of the insistence in having a Happily Ever After. Of course, I root for protagonists. I want them to resolve the problems authors throw at them to keep us reading. However, I don’t ascribe to the rigid belief that finding everlasting love (or even a happy-for-now love scenario…hello, sequel) is the only way to have a happy ending. Romance novels continue to propagate a pervasive bias that being coupled makes life better. A person, real or fictionalized, can be happy, single or attached. 

 

Romance lovers say, Fine, sourpuss. Write your damned story, without princes or weddings or an ending with a couple kissing on a beach in Fiji. It’s just not a romance novel. And, hell no, I’m not going to touch it! VD is for Valentine’s Day, not venereal disease. 

 

Fair enough. Reading is often another form of escapism, but I wonder what harm it does. The romance book market remains robust and readers eagerly lap up one romance after another, happy-coupled ending after happy-coupled ending. Surely, it feeds into hopes and expectations of the same in readers’ actual lives. Where are the stories of triumph in going it alone or breaking free from a mismatched, perhaps even harmful relationship, ending not with the character jumping into another, seemingly healthier relationship, but finding comfort and confidence in going forward on their own, happily ever after or, at least, happy for now? We have a massively popular genre of literature that won’t even consider that as a viable option. 

 

Did I say I’m considering writing a gay romance? It’s a stretch, for sure. This post might make it seem doubtful, but I can do happy. I can get in the right frame of mind with a playlist that includes “Shiny Happy People” and this song but certainly not that song. I’ll leave out the bed bugs. No castles nor crowns either. If there’s a Prince, it’ll be the beagle. The closest I’ll get to charming is the brand-named toilet paper that leaves off the last letter. Maybe I’ll even publish under a gender-ambiguous first-name pseudonym like Pat or Jordan so no one is turned off knowing the M/M tale was penned by an actual dude. 

 

Look for my book on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble and on indie store shelves in 2026. If my title should indeed appear in any or all of those places, that will be my real-life happily ever after.

 

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[1] Male primogeniture, favoring younger sons over older sisters, wasn’t done away with for the British monarchy until The Succession to the Crown Act of 2013, the amendment applying to births after October 28, 2011, thereby keeping older cases of gender discrimination intact. Thus, Charles’ sister, Anne, born in 1950, is 16^th in line to the throne while her younger brothers Andrew (b. 1960) and Edward (b. 1964) are 8^th and 13^th, respectively. (Based on the “enlightened” 2013 act, Prince William’s daughter, Charlotte (b. 2015; 3rd), now falls between older brother, George (b. 2013; 2^nd) and younger brother, Louis (b. 2018; 4^th).) It’s not that Anne will ever have a shot at becoming queen but rather that her status is diminished due to gender, a practice perpetuated for centuries. Why would women romanticize royalty?

DO I HAVE TO RESCIND MY "GAY" CARD IF I DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT GOING TO THE MADONNA CONCERT?

So Madonna having a 40^th anniversary concert tour. It opens in Vancouver at Rogers Arena, a ten-minute walk from my place. Tickets went on sale today. I didn’t get them. Didn’t even try.

 

Weirdly, I’ve never been to a Madonna concert. I had all her albums up until “Ray of Light.” Even bought the extended single for “Get into the Groove” when it didn’t appear on an album. Hell, I bought the 45 of “Sidewalk Talk” by Jellybean Benitez because Madonna sang backing vocals. And, let’s face it, Madonna wasn’t really known for her vocals.

 

I adored Madonna as much as the next gay in the ’80s and ’90s. I even considered myself a fan before the gays latched onto her. That first hit, “Holiday,” had me. It wasn’t ever going to be nominated for a Grammy, but it was an insanely catchy piece of pop music. It made me want to dance around in my dorm room. It made me happy. When “Borderline” got me believing there might be a career for this singer who dared to be so self-important as to go by one name—hoping to be more Cher than Melanie—I bought her album. I loved it all. I propped up the album cover in the window, letting it compete with my enormous poster for Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” album. Every song gave me happy dancing vibes. Through repeated plays, I managed to never scratch the vinyl. I suppose I took extra care. 

 

Madonna broke out as MTV and music videos were taking off. I always stopped everything I was doing when “Borderline” came on. There’s a little kick she does against a street pole that still gets me. I don’t know why. Her video for “Lucky Star” was barebones—simple dance moves against a white background. I couldn’t look away. Madonna worked some sort of hypnotic power over me. I was a fan before ever coming out, before ever stepping foot on a dancefloor in a gay bar.

 

Still, no concert. I’m admittedly not a huge concert goer. My experience has been shelling out lots of money for crappy seats, particularly back in the ’80s and early ’90s when I didn’t have much money. I once went to a Bette Midler concert and only glimpsed her from high above whenever she appeared on the right side of the stage which, as luck would have it, was far less than half the time. (Or so it seemed.) Still, I’ve been fortunate to see some greats. Barry Manilow—say what you want about his music, but the guy knew how to put on a show—Elton John, Natalie Cole, Barbra Streisand, Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan, Lady Gaga, Anita Baker, even Kenny Rogers in his prime. (It was during my Texas years and I had a crush on a guy who was in the group I went with. It was mighty weird pining over a dude, giving him sideways glances as Kenny sang “Lady.”) 

 

I suppose the Blond Ambition tour would have been when I wanted to see her the most. I passed. I think part of me knew the vocals wouldn’t be nearly as good as her voice on record. I give her credit for using a real mic while dancing around, Burning Up more oodles more calories than I ever worked off during Super Step classes at the gym. Glad she didn’t go the Janet or Britney route and lip sync. In truth, I was never drawn to Madonna as a staged spectacle. I didn’t need the shock value gimmicks involving conical boobs and potshots at Catholicism. Feigning shock and indignation over attempts to ban or arrest her were sideline theatrics that most of her fans lapped up. Papa Don’t Preach, indeed! It made seeing her live come off as its own daring act. Truth is I never cared for her tough girl banter and watching a concert clip of her vaudevillian banging around with backing vocalists on “Causing a Commotion” came off as juvenile. All I wanted was the music. I stayed home, irking only the neighbors as I sang along—badly—to “Crazy for You” and “Open Your Heart.” 

 

She’s always sought the limelight. Craved it. Commanded it. Sometimes I wonder how much bigger she’d have been—is that even possible?—had she gotten her start with TikTok going at full steam, with all the other social media platforms. She’d have out-Kardashianed Kim. 

As much as her extensive discography, she’s still remembered for writhing around in a wedding dress while singing “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Awards, her “Justify My Love” video, “Erotica,” the Sex book and deep throating a bottle in the “Truth or Dare” documentary. 

Yes, she pushed sex while Nancy Reagan was telling youth to “Just Say No” and she accepted gay men with open arms while governments and the public shunned them during the AIDS crisis. She made coming out better. She made clubbing more fun as we Vogued and stared at the screens, ogling the male models in her “Cherish” video. An icon, without a doubt. 

 

But then it got derivative. Kissing Britney and Christina at the 2003 MTV Awards. Mounting herself on a crucifix during a 2013 tour. I had to look that one up. Don’t remember it. Don’t know if I even read about it at the time. Madonna wasn’t making headlines anymore.

 

Madonna’s attempts to grab headlines now seem forced. Embarrassing even. There have been inane comments about COVID and more flesh-baring moments that come off as tired and desperate rather than edgy. It’s hard to come off as hip when she’s already been there and done all of that. A fake Truth or Dare video with Amy Schumer saying, “I dare you to go on tour” seems childish…and boring. Brings the game back to its roots—fifth graders on a playground—instead of that era of the ’80s and ’90s when gays lapped up everything Madonna said and did.

 

By now, I’d have hoped Madonna would have evolved. Matured even. Maybe taken inspiration from the legacies of Dolly Parton, Audrey Hepburn and Jane Fonda. I don’t want to see a sixty-four-year-old mother of six baring her breasts yet again, searching for ways for it to seem fresh. It’ll never be fresh again. 

 

Not that Madonna’s leaning on me for career and image advice, but I’d rather Madonna spend more time as the strong advocate she’s been, speaking out about gay rights, women’s rights and the continuing discrepancies in healthcare and education in places like Malawi from where she adopted four of her children. I Googled Madonna’s name along with “trans rights” and nothing specific came up. I would have thought she’d have been speaking out against J.K. Rowling, mocking conservatives who are afraid to use public bathrooms and showing up at protests to raise concerns about violence toward people who identify as transgender.  

 

Scanning her activity on Twitter over the past year, there’s lots of self-promotion, which is to be expected, along with a couple of tweets about voting, another that says “Artists are here to disturb the peace,” a couple of Pride tweets and a few in-the-moment about abortions rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, one about Uvalde, one from thirteen months ago about “bring(ing) lifesaving healthcare to children in Malawi and all around the world.” It’s good but there is no sustained attention to any cause. 

 

Not that she has to do anything. I’ve just always associated her with poking at entrenched conservatives while putting the spotlight on, not just herself, but human rights. I also Googled Annie Lennox, another ’80s icon, to discover that Lennox continues to do the good work. It’s not so well known in North America because her star has faded. I believe Madonna can still get attention, albeit a fraction of what she once garnered. She could put it to good use, getting into “good trouble.” She’d find creative ways to bring attention to causes, probably building on the brash, ballsy reputation she’s built. That would excite me. That would make me pay attention to more of what she’s up to. I probably still wouldn’t pay for a concert ticket but, if she were part of a large-scale concert for a key cause, that might be what it takes for me to finally see her live.

 

In the meantime, I’ll sit out this tour. I’ll continue to listen to the music though. Currently, I’m rediscovering “Drowned World/Substitute for Love,” the overlooked “Ghosttown” and gems like “Rain” and “Don’t Tell Me,” along with all the bigger hits. 

 

If you got tickets, enjoy the show. Dance, sing, laugh. I suppose that’s how it all started as Madonna rose to fame all those years ago.

EXIT, STAGE RIGHT

I’ve delayed this post because I thought the issue would go away. And yet this guy’s like the dinner guest who won’t take the hint and just leave.

 

Haven’t we all said it? “Bye, George.” 

 

Still, he stays.

 

It seems apropos to
mention toilet paper.

Why can’t George Santos fade away, unceremoniously flushed from memory like Milli Vanilli, that “Cats” movie and pumpkin spice toilet paper. Let anyone’s retelling about any of them follow with the uninformed saying, “You’re kidding, right?” If only.

 

As a Canadian, I remained blissfully ignorant of George for a while. Every country’s political arena has a few kooks; I didn’t need to gawk at what was going on regarding a newly elected member of the House of Representatives from New York. But then the bits and pieces of the representative’s misrepresentations leaked out in tweets I read and news stories I skimmed. George Anthony Devoider Santos claimed to have a degree in economics and finance from Baruch College in NYC. Never happened. He said earned an MBA from NYU. He didn’t. Worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Nope and nope. While writing this, I came across an article that said Santos lied about attending a high school in the Bronx and being a star volleyball player while at Baruch. That’s just some of it. I don’t want to know more. I’m not a constituent, thankfully. 

 

This is the kind of person who would lie about watching “The White Lotus” and digging Beyoncé if he thought it would improve his standing. Heck, I don’t think I could even trust his answer to “What’s your favorite color?” 

 

To be sure, the guy is delusional. A pathological liar. Someone who delights in deception. I know there are cynics who shrug and say, What do you expect? He’s a politician. They’re all liars. But even the most cynical would concede that something truthful might slip out once in a while. Not so, it seems, from Santos.

 

I also realize plenty of people embellish their resumés. There are limits, of course. Lying about degrees and previous employment should get anyone fired. It appears that George Santos’s entire resumé is a fabrication. (Who lies about their high school? Did he make it through ninth grade?) Who is he really? How can the 746,000 people living in New York’s 3^rd congressional district have any trust in him? 

 

George Santos isn’t as much of an anomaly as I’d like him to be. A person like him can feel emboldened by his idol, Donald Trump, a man who regularly makes things up about elections, his intelligence, his medical records and his businesses. Trump knows that his base will swallow anything he dishes out. Too many of the supposedly reputable Republicans have not dared to call bullshit. “That’s just Trump” some seem to say with a shrug. Much of Trump’s hot air about wealth and corporate success may have been dismissed as puffery, but the lack of fact checking and holding the former world leader accountable only gave him carte blanche to tell more dangerous lies. Then there’s Kellyanne Conway who introduced the public to “alternative facts” back in 2017. An impressionable wannabe politician like Santos only had to point to the most powerful members of his party to inspire him to run for office on wholly false qualifications. As galling as it is, it’s no surprise at all.

 

I’m disappointed with the Republican Party for either not vetting him or, as The New York Times, intoned yesterday, discovering the falsehoods and not disqualifying him as a candidate. Naturally, I’m disappointed—astonished even—with Democrats at the local level in opponent Robert Zimmerman’s campaign office and at the state and national level who didn’t do their own fact checking. Furthermore, the media needs to be called out for its own negligence in covering a key race. According to The Times, only “The North Shore Leader on Long Island, run by a Republican lawyer and former House candidate, Grant Lally,” found cause to label Santos as a “fabulist—a fake.” (According to Wikipedia, it has a circulation of 20,000.) A telling statement in yesterday’s article: “None of the bigger outlets, including The Times, followed up with extensive stories examining his real address or his campaign’s questionable spending, focusing their coverage instead on Mr. Santos’s extreme policy views and the historic nature of a race between two openly gay candidates.” 

 

It's only because Santos claims to be gay that I’m blogging about this audacious hanger-on. I can cast this vial individual aside, knowing I’m not an American or a New Yorker. But I feel the slightest association in that he’s gay. My knee-jerk reaction when I heard this was to dismiss him as one of those Log Cabin Republicans whom I cannot relate to. I don’t know how a gay man can put economics ahead of social issues, particularly regarding the LGBTQ community. Republicans have neither been our allies nor our advocates. Most recently, they have railed against trans rights to rile up the base, translating fear and ignorance into increased campaign coffers and votes. The fact they’ve stoked hatred, resulting in threats and violence, lowering the sense of safety and self-esteem among trans and nonbinary individuals matters not to them. Honestly, it’s unfathomable to me that anyone queer identifies as Republican. I don’t think such a person has any true sense of the history of LGBTQ hate and discrimination. 

 

Reps. Barney Frank and Gerry Studs
(undated photo)

Thirty years ago, I would have been embarrassed and appalled to learn someone so undeserving as George Santos got elected to Congress and refused to do the right thing and step down. Nowadays, it’s ridiculous for someone like Santos to make me feel any personal sense of shame. Clearly, doing the right thing is not in Santos’s playbook. Moreover, my gay identity is neither dented nor dinged because of someone like Santos. Thirty years ago, there were far fewer out-gay men, particularly in politics. Every move by gay Representatives Gerry Studs and Barney Frank mattered. (Indeed, both fell under scrutiny for sex scandals though each weathered the investigations and continued to be reelected to Congress.) We’re now in an era where, with the exceptions of country music and sports, coming out as a gay public figure warrants little, if any, attention in North America. Maybe a day of trending on Twitter alongside other topics like today’s popular fodder, #Conspiracy (yawn) and #TheLastOfUs (shrug…I don’t pay for its streaming channel). There are currently eleven other queer members of the House. More importantly, we can be proud of how brightly Pete Buttigieg shines in American politics. 

 

I could question Santos’s gayness as some have. Apparently, it’s come out—no pun intended—that he was previously married to a woman. Further, his purported husband seems to have disappeared from public view, along with the wedding ring Santos wore. It’s clear that we don’t know who George Santos is. I’m not sure if even he knows.

 

If Santos is gay, so be it. That has nothing to do with why he needs to fade away. My frustration with political parties and the press don’t compare to my astonishment over George Santos himself and the lies he hath spun. He is ultimately responsible for the breadth of deceit. He must be held accountable. 

 

May we forget him as quickly as we’ve erased another disgraced Republican congressman, Aaron Schock, who came out in 2020, five years after his resignation. Don’t Google him. Let him live in his newfound obscurity. Let that be Santos’s ultimate fate as well.   

 

 

MOCK JOCK

My boyfriend, Evan, thinks I’m a jock. He tells me he got this impression when he first came across my photos on my OkCupid profile a year before I reached out and sent him a message. He figured I was a dumb sports dude and passed me over. 

 

There’s a whole lot wrong with that. Just being into sports doesn’t signify a diminished IQ. I’m supposed to say that. I’m supposed to disregard any impressions I get from inebriated guys watching games at the bar of a pizzeria I frequent. It’s the booze, not the basketball. They’d be just as avid fans if they drank straight tomato juice during the game, right? (As an aside, who put clam juice in a V8 and decided it was a thing?) 

 

The bigger issue is that Evan passed on me because I came off as a jock. Surely there were many reasons for guys on dating sites to dismiss me but me being some hardcore sports dude? How had I even conveyed that? I recall a photo of me cycling and one of me hiking and another of me at the beach, fully clothed, just smiling because it’s, you know, the beach. That’s my happy place. I wasn’t playing beach volleyball or jogging along the shore (which I do, often, when I travel). I wasn’t even hauling one of those metal detectors, which I presume to be heavy enough for a mild upper body workout, searching for gold or nickels or someone’s lost keys. 

 

In no way should the photo of me in the sand have given off a jock vibe. I think I was wearing a hoodie in the shot which, to Evan, is jock clothing. (Walk through Safeway and check out all the guys wearing hoodies while loading up on Doritos and pork rinds. That oughta destroy any jock connotation.) 

 

I suppose I wanted the biking and hiking pics to convey that I’m an active person, at least when not lounging in hoodies. Jock though? Me?!

 

The weird thing is that Evan still thinks I’m a jock. This after ten months of dating. It’s baffling.

 

I can say with 100% certainty that not a single person in elementary school, junior high or high school ever mistook me for a jock. Just the opposite. I went through physical education at a time when lame teachers assigned to people to be captains who then took turns picking classmates to make teams. I was always the last boy standing against the wall. If it was a good day, I’d get picked before Mary Novakovic. But then a lot of days weren’t good at all. Not in P.E. I can’t count all the times Stephen P. loud-whispered, “We lost because of you!” He said what the rest of the team was thinking.

 

Jock.

 

Um, it just sounds weird. Like calling me a Martian or a Muppet or a Fanilow. (Okay, I did own several Barry Manilow albums and I did see him in concert and I never change the radio station when “Mandy” comes on even if “Looks Like We Made It” is a better song though not as epic as “Weekend in New England.”) Maybe Fanilow fits, but I’m neither a Martian, nor a Muppet (even though I adore the Swedish Chef), nor a jock.

 

Evan begs to differ. The latest piece of evidence he’s holding over me is the fact that I just went to a college football bowl game, shelling out more than $1,200 Canadian to see my alma mater, TCU, beat Michigan at the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. (This, incidentally, is the fifth time I’ve gone to a bowl game to watch TCU play.) I might have also gone to Los Angeles to see TCU play Georgia in the national championship today, but my bank account won’t cooperate. Honestly, I thought getting to the Fiesta Bowl was as good as it would get. Never thought we’d win. Isn’t that proof that I’m not a dumb jock? I’m realistic. I don’t go around boasting about My Team. I don’t wear jerseys to pretend I’m What’s His Name. (Really, I only knew the quarterback, Heisman Trophy runner-up, Matt Duggan, whom I called Max for the entire first half and whose last name I only realized I’d mispronounced when I saw the highlights on TV after the game.) 

 

Not a jock.

 

I think I watched the last ten minutes of one TCU football game in the regular season. Instead, I just checked out the scores online and watched the team move up the rankings in the weekly polls. It wasn’t much different than following the Billboard music charts which I’ve done ever since I was a kid listening to American Top 40 while my peers were outside playing baseball or throwing the football around or skateboarding in the neighborhood. (One scabbed knee from a tumble on the driveway was enough for me to let Tony Hawk have all the glory. For the record, I had to Google him, thinking he might be a surfer or racecar driver instead of a skateboarder.)  

 

I should add that I went to the football game with my two besties, both women, from my days at TCU. They are my bowl buddies. I should also say I didn’t drink beer at the game. I’m realizing now that I didn’t drink anything at all. Apparently, I think stadium refreshments are overpriced, but I’m a sucker for premium football tickets with hefty service fees. 

 

I think that makes me more of a dork than a jock, but I’m not going to enlighten Evan. If my boyfriend still thinks I’m a jock, I’m weirdly flattered. Hopefully, he’s cast aside the “dumb” descriptor. I don’t dare ask.

 

And one more thing:

 

Go Frogs!