November 1999

Shammi and Nadia's farewell party was some time ago. I met Paul and Tracy at their apartment first. We stood on the balcony overlooking 18th Street that stretched beyond what our eyes could see, while a tower rose behind us on a hill that was crammed with homes whose lighted windows looked like the eyes of wild animals. My eyes followed the shimmering lights of Bay Bridge, smoking and conversing with Paul who had kissed me on both cheeks with vehement adoration when I'd walked into the small cozy apartment. Tracy scavenged for the invitation to the party which had the address of our destination. I wasn't surprised that he'd lost it; I had even anticipated it. Now I laughed with Paul about this. He offered me a pot brownie. The city moved like some fantastical liquid dream of lights and celebration below our laughter, and I thought of the past, placing a tender hand on the aging face of memory, saying goodbye to it once and for all.
There were all sorts of lovely people at the party, some of whom I knew and others I was meeting for the first time. Here, too, I stood on the balcony above the quiet side-street and took in the moment like it was some rare, tasty morsel I was trying for the first time. The love I felt at the party made me think of the many faceless queer Middle Eastern youth that live around the world in desperate isolation. Amid all the laughter I grieved privately for them. Where were they now and how long before they too had what I was so generously granted by very selective and powerful forces?
Laura, Shammi's sylphlike ex-girlfriend, asked what the difference is between Assyrians and the Chaldean people. I didn't know the answer and was more than willing to learn and deferred to Paul, who explained the nuances.
Soon Amahl arrived and I watched her through the sliding glass door. She stood tall in an eccentric attire- a men's grey suite that looked better on her than any man any day, and conversed with Elias- the Berkeley instructor who is knowledgeable about Assyrians and whose long dreadlocks fall down the length of his back like silver, grey, and golden serpents. I noted that the rug bunched up beneath Amahl's shoes, which she could not smooth out no matter how hard she tried. This made me smile; I turned to Paul who was smoking outside with me and said, 'There's so much to write about Amahl. Every time I see her I end up writing about her in my diary. So much happens around her. Watch the way the rug crawls and bunches.'
I talked to a published poet.
I was kissed and hugged many times.
There was unending laughter, heartfelt talks, promises to get together soon.
I found the young Chaldean attractive but kept my interest to myself. These days I do not seek romance, but friendship, and try not to aid fate or to steer destiny. I stand aside and let magic happen, watch it succeed or fail. Everyone asked me what I thought of the young Chaldean. Shammi and Laura spoke highly of him and I sensed that they had plans for us long before he or I knew it. Paul made googly eyes and made me laugh and blush and nearly embarrassed me more than once before the young man, who was funny and intelligent and amazing. But I was in no mood to be flirtatious and didn't flirt when he and I ended up talking in the kitchen.
Tracy needed cigarettes and asked if I would accompany him to the store. Leaving the party and strolling down the cold quiet streets was a nice change for us. We walked leisurely and stopped at a store window where a red fifties-style gown was displayed under lights. I said, 'I could see your mother dancing in that, Tracy.' "You're right. How did you know that?" he asked in disbelief. We stood in the soft light of the window gazing at the red dress. 'Because of all the stories you've told me about her. I have fallen in love with her.'
We didn't find the convenience store but when Tracy pointed out a gay bar across the street I felt spontaneous and suggested we go inside for a drink. Tracy felt equally adventurous and so we did. It turned out to be a lovely neighborhood pub, so we situated ourselves at the bar. I ordered a Cosmopolitan. Tracy ordered cigarettes. The young man to my right started talking to me, seemed nice enough, but it was soon obvious that he was trying to pick me up. He ignored Tracy and invited me out to the back patio. Tracy was already defensive and it was evident that he didn't care for the stranger whose attention was solely directed at me, but we went out anyway to smoke. Tracy felt threatened and slighted and was quiet and pensive. I knew I wanted to leave then but a few quick biting remarks were exchanged between Tracy and the stranger before we found ourselves walking back to the party hand in hand.
Saying goodbye to Shammi and Nadia was a sad affair and some had tears in their eyes. I hugged Shammi tightly and spoke into her ear, 'Enjoy Iraq. Be there. Feel your presence there.' We kissed goodbye and said we'd see each other soon.
Hunger struck recently and I succumbed willingly. The streets rose beneath my eager step and it was as though I traipsed on swells of desire and waves of passion. Concrete was made of longing and yet my own desire for another's touch was concrete. But this time I did not fear or doubt myself, did not second-guess life and nature. I met him at the same bookstore where I once stood reading to a receptive audience, grateful for their applause and reeled. We made eye contact and just then my penis rose beneath the fabric, an erection whose outline I caressed from behind the books. I flipped through the pages of a magazine but did not see the naked men on paper. I only saw the blindness that was created out of lust. The stack of magazines I stood next to fell to the floor. I felt foolish. It was comical, timed perfectly, choreographed neatly by life. He came to the fallen magazines and helped me get them in order.
We did not go to his house but to his truck that was parked nearby, and climbed into the camper in the back. I felt a fantasy was being created and fulfilled. Eagerly I climbed into the small bed that was above the cab. I pulled closed the thin curtain to the small window beyond which a great view of San Francisco sprawled and where shimmering streets fell away- cars too, people, homes, signs, trees- all things falling, dipping into obscurity, sinking. My heart too sank under the touch of the stranger who did not want the bizarre, the curious, or the unsafe act. We caressed each other. Then he took my balls into his mouth. I could not fit his into mine. I wondered if I hurt him trying. But he did not complain. He only moaned. He was older, but trim, and the hair on his body was soft, perfect. I played with the wispy hairs on his chest. We kissed once or twice but not for long. Kisses are intimate. Genitals are public. Ironic, isn't it? Well, don't judge. You're not from my world, my story.
When we were finished I jumped out of the truck, left behind the dark bed in the light of street lamps, the small table, the tiny seats, the miniature house for a traveler, and stepped onto ever-sinking streets like roller coasters. We met and parted as strangers, but I did not scream or cry on the bridge home for I knew I had not been foolish, unsafe, unsanitary. It had been perfect in its own way. I chuckled to myself as I drove home, because I had come profusely and sprayed unexpectedly on his face.
A few nights ago I had a peculiar dream, but aren't all dreams peculiar? I had ridden on the back of a very tall camel through a city. The camel grew so tall that I could see inside the penthouses of the tallest buildings. We rode through the streets and I was above and beyond the world.
No gesture or word can contain the emotions, no human reflex can express the appreciation and the love...
Spending my nights typing out my diary; rather, the diary of some teenager I never knew, accounts I feel I've found on the street, belonging to a stranger. This process makes me introspective and quiet and my silence baffles mom and Jackie. And I can't explain to them why I get so melancholic.
This process gives me an image: I see glass that has been shattered, but slowly, surreptitiously mends itself. Am I broken glass that restores itself? And if so, is this a gift of youth or do we possess this ability, this reflex throughout our adult life?
Recently Jackie and I climbed the roof to finish painting the trim of the house. It was a beautiful overcast afternoon. We walked uneasily on the sloping roof laughing, a couple of times almost slipping but steadying ourselves. Jackie hanged from the edge of the highest point with a paintbrush in her hand while I held on to the back of her jeans. I looked about at the rolling hills, at the other homes, the other roofs of various colors and textures, at the smoking chimneys. From here I could see into other yards- the neighbor’s young dog staring at us with his head tilted, his ears poised. This was a place to sit and daydream, but summer passed and I would have to wait. I felt so removed from the troubles on the ground, the misfortunes I try to ignore and to avoid, and I remembered my fascination with rooftops. It must have begun in Iran, in Tehran where roofs were flat and one had free access to them. People oftentimes slept on roofs in the summer, under starry skies. Some people even had guests for tea that was served up there, not indoors. Some people like to remain behind the scenes. Not I. I like to be above.
That same evening Jackie and I decided to reward ourselves for our efforts by having sushi in the city. I drove as Jackie sat like a restless child in the passenger seat, unaccustomed to being the passenger. We talked and laughed like we always do. Somehow the conversation led to one of Jackie’s relationships, one that had been a much too painful experience to ever go into, and although she would not go beyond a certain point, ever, which always left a void and a mystery for me, I pressed and begged her to just tell me. I jokingly threatened to turn the car around. Traffic came to a slow crawl at the mouth of the bridge. Night fell. Lights flickered. I turned off the music. My beautiful young aunt with eyes as wide as the black water around us talked now of betrayal, of a painful loss of faith in God, of the years she lived practically alone here in Novato, and of friends who never called to check up on her. Her voice broke and she began to cry, and I knew her disenchantment was much greater than my own. Much deeper in places. Bloodied. I handed her a tissue. I wanted to give much more but had nothing to offer. There are just no words at such times. So, I allowed her to speak and compose herself.
It was amazing to me that the same woman who had climbed the shaky ladder to a peaceful roof, the woman in paint-stained jeans, her hair simply pulled back, no makeup, and down to earth, laughing and cracking jokes, was now sitting next to me, vulnerable, beautiful, made up, crying. They were two women, two lives, and I am certain now that no human being can live a same life, a single life within one day, that we must constantly evolve with the moment, break into fragments, multiply ourselves, recreate ourselves, change to survive.
The next day I would see Jackie’s tear-stained tissue on the floor of my car and have an impulse to save it... because I saw so much meaning, beauty, and tenderness in the folds of the discarded thing.
At the sushi bar the boats floated by with delectable offerings of eel, salmon, roe, and we resumed laughing. It was so natural to be happy again. I think we both understand that life is a tragicomedy, that we can struggle, lose faith, be disenchanted, but remain grateful and even ecstatic about the future, and dream. Jackie always fosters this belief in me. We have hope in common.
For the first time since I came out to Jackie she talked openly about my sexuality. Her curiosity seemed to have found a home since her confessions in the car, her tears. The doors open a little more each day and we enter without our shoes, gifts in our hands. We looked at handsome men and she began to say something, but stopped herself, then continued, “What if we liked the same guy?” I smiled, ‘I’m so glad you said that!’ And I thanked her for acknowledging me, our similarity, our attraction to men. Then she asked, “At what age did you know?” ‘The day I was born.’
There are nights when Jackie and I will sit in front of the television and have a gin and tonic and critique a newscaster’s dress, or an actor’s hair, comment on the beauty of places on the Travel Channel, yawn at the rambling of politicians, chuckle at things, and mute the commercials because everything is so fast, so loud, so big and booming and tacky in America.
But no matter how close we get she will not tell me if she will live or die. When I casually ask, ‘So, what’s going on with your arm?’ she goes about her tasks without meeting my eyes and merely answers, “Nothing. There’s nothing to do about it.” And I drop the issue because I can take a hint, but are we wasting precious time?
The weather changes. It begins to rain. The sky is dark by five-thirty. I refuse to lose my aunt to the storms.
I lean and wait patiently against this obstinate silence of the Assyrian woman, whose decision it is to keep her pain a secret because she does not want to burden her loved ones.
Sometimes I truly resent being Assyrian, no matter how Americanized we may be.
Tracy calls, but from a hospital bed! ‘What happened? Why?’ I am alarmed but monitor my shock, check it. He says he is all right and there is no need to worry. “I had a lung infection but am better now.” I breathe a sigh of relief and begin to hear the cheer in his voice, the signature humor in his voice. We try to find sanity in the space behind the truth that Tracy is a man living with AIDS. I hang up feeling spent because I am already grieving, not Tracy’s future death, but the existence of the disease. These are precious years.
My loneliness, the desperate winters of last summer, all my anguish vanishes here, in the charms of a moment filled with sadness for others, and I think of Luay and my indignation that I did not have an opportunity to grow with him. There are words we never had a chance to exchange, conversations we never had, places we never frequented. My hand senses his absence. I don’t mind losing at a game, an argument, a fight, a bet, but I do deeply resent losing at love.
Nancy, a local eccentric who frequents Half Day is wearing black. She is normally garrulous, keeping me from effectively tending to my other tables, her eyes wet but full of energy, a spark, but today she whispers, “There was a death in the family... my son actually. I called him but could not get through. I thought he might be on the Internet. After a few hours I got worried. I called his landlord. They broke down his door and found him lying in bed with a book resting on his chest. They said he looked peaceful. He was only thirty-eight.” Her voice breaks like steam. “When he was very small they called me to school one day and I thought he had gotten into trouble. They told me they had given him an IQ test and that he had scored quite highly. They said that he was too smart for his classmates, that he would be lonely. And he was lonely. He really was. I dread the coroner’s report.”
All I can say is, ‘He was lucky to have a mother like you. You were his friend.’
“Thank you, Emil. I was. We even liked the same classical music.”
Life gives us precious years, but ones that pass with extreme celerity, taking in their wake our friends, relatives, childhood, and our faith in dreams.
I talked to Lena earlier today and she tells me that he’s drinking more. Her voice is feeble and distant and contains a deep tear at its core. “The other day he came home from the market and I inspected the bags. He laughed because I didn’t find any liquor. So, I searched his person and found a vodka bottle in his sock.”
I am horrified. I had always thought it can’t get any worse, but maybe I was thinking of my own anguish and not of my father’s.
Lena continues, “He says that when he wakes in the morning the first thought is that he wants to die.” I can see their little first-floor room with a window that opens to a dirty narrow street, a shadowy place.
‘I want you to take care of yourself, Lena,’ I advise her in Assyrian. ‘Nothing you say or do will make my father stop drinking. Don’t you think my mother tried? Don’t you think I tried? It’s useless.’
“But how can I just let go? When you see something terrible happening right before your eyes to someone you love there is no way to not do anything”- a ripping of fabric in her voice, the cracking of rock.
‘This is why I could not stand to come home when I was there, Lena. My father is gone. The man there is not my father.’
She stands in his defense now, the loyal, unyielding Assyrian wife, “But your father is a wonderful man as you say he was when you were a child. He’s still that man. It’s only when he drinks that he becomes someone else. ‘Alcole’ is a demon.”
Even from here, with so much distance between me and dad’s alcoholism, I feel I stand in the eye of the storm, defenseless, helpless, and cowardly. Suddenly I am moved to take action and to salvage what is left of my father. To lose this false sense of indifference and assume a more active stance. Suddenly I feel I must go back to Chicago and spend time healing my father, and to heal with him. I’m torn. What can I do to assist my father? Am I dreaming or is it actually possible that I can influence him, aid him, heal him?
But I know, as I always did through the besotted years, that my love for my father will always fill me with pain, as if my love were hate itself. There is nothing I can do. I am not special and I am not wiser than my mother who could not change him. My voice is as hollow and as distant to my father as anyone’s- he will hear me as if a draft in a cavern that is black and he will forget my pleas, my prayers, and disregard my teary attempts. I have lost my father. I have lost my father to darkness, to the cavern of addiction. Addicts are monsters!
I left a message for Paul and Tracy asking for their feedback, as I value their opinion in such matters, both of them being social workers. Tracy returned my call as soon as he got in from work and warned me against going to my father’s aid. He had a strong argument; I was convinced without a struggle. He cried as he talked about having lost his own brother to addiction, to heroin. His harrowing narration left me frozen, leaning against the wall in the hallway, unable to say anything other than, ‘My God...’
He said, “On my dresser I keep a picture of me and my brother as children. I’m sitting in his lap and we’re both smiling. This is how I choose to remember us... There was nothing any of us could do to help my brother. So all we did was love him as he was and suffer his blows. He stole from my mother and me, he threatened us, he intimidated us, put us through hell, but we loved him. Call your father and just say, Papa, I love you.”
They drag us down with them, don’t they? And all we can do is claw and scratch at them, kick and struggle, all the while kissing their wounds as we free-fall through traps of love and resentment.
“My brother was a genius in lots of ways- he skipped grades, studied physics in college, and landed in jail for impersonating a doctor.”
‘How did he do that?’ I was in the yard now, smoking.
“He just walked into the hospital in Harlem, found a white smock and a stethoscope and posed as a doctor. That’s how he stole syringes and drugs. When I told him how stupid he was he said it had worked three other times!”
Tracy continued, “He broke my mother’s heart though. More than once I caught him walking out of my mother’s house with a television set and other things. Once I caught him carrying stuff out in a garbage bag and he said he was only taking the trash out. I made him take it back, of course, but he didn’t always listen. Another time when he was in jail I told him he needed to get into a program. He got angry with me and when he was out he beat me unconscious. I have scars from that incident. He said, ‘How dare you tell me how to treat my problem!’ Nothing I did or said was good enough for him. When our mother died I tried my best to get him out of jail so he could attend her funeral, but they wouldn’t allow him to go. They said they’d let him go to her wake but no one else could be present, which I understood. Can you imagine a felon being escorted to see his dead mother in a coffin in shackles? Emil, I don’t want you to get your heart broken by your father again. I think it’s best that you let him go. It’s not your fault that he’s drinking. There is nothing you can do. When I read your journal entries about your last visit with your father I cried. I know exactly what you went through. Just don’t stop loving him.”
‘Tracy, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for opening up the way you have and helping me through this. I hope you’re not worn out by it all.’
He chuckled, “Oh no, it’s actually good for me to talk about it. It will always hurt me to think of the way my brother treated us and all the pain he caused us. But I think of the good times, and there were some. And in the end...” Tracy choked up again, “he died alone.”
It kills me that I have to save myself from my own father, of all people; that I am robbed of his love and presence, all not because of war or immigration delays and glitches, but of his own doing. This is life?
I’ve been in touch with Amy Sonnie, the editor of Revolutionary Voices, proofreading her introduction.
Kelly e-mails:

Wow. I’ve been reading your diary and it’s very poignant, beautiful and depressing. I was shocked that Santi was my age during the whole thing. I guess there are different rules for gay teachers in the gay community. (Are there?) But I would NEVER NEVER NEVER speak like that to one of my students- especially one so confused and lonely... so easily manipulated. No offense, sweetie. I think he’s a pig and have lost what little respect I had for him. But I’m sure you harbor no ill feelings. 
I am at school. We are having parent-teacher conferences. One of the parents had to be arrested. Her daughter had been expelled and she brought her here to kick the principal’s ass. Can you believe it? But we were ready for her because they already know she’s insane. So the cops were waiting for her. They told her to leave and she refused, and then they arrested her. She was hitting them and spitting and swearing... and her sixteen year old daughter was screaming “Don’t fuck with my O.G.!” They arrested her too. It was an interesting diversion, but very sad. 
Well, in 8 minutes we are going out drinking, even though I can’t drink, being the lactating mama that I am. 
I love you!!!
Kelly

In response to one of Grant’s witty e-mails I write the following:

I’m giggling because though you found your last e-mail vague and short I thought it was filled with emotion and humor, with feeling. It was wonderful. I think too that I got to see a different side of you- a young, human, and fallible side. And not just the academic one asking all sorts of social and historical questions. 
Funny that you should mention “boy trouble” because I think the hardest part sometimes about being gay isn’t dealing with homophobia but with gay men! Why are we so fickle, so non-committal? I mean, I am not by any means saying that I am above all this. I, too, possess these characteristics. I don’t know. I don’t want to get into it in an e-mail. In fact, talking about boys isn’t my strongest area of argument. You might say I am deeply disenchanted with us. 
Whatever is happening with you and “the boy” I hope that you reach some safe and happy place with it.  
On going crazy: I do it every day and I think all persons should question sanity, as its definition changes as fast as the days do. Go with it. Fall, I say, because as often as you fall into a gutter you might find that you’ve just fallen into a crystal clear stream... of dreams, wishes. 
Get your education though, and I think it is absolutely possible to couple academics with emotion. 
Then again, look at me. I can’t do school. Just can’t get and keep myself in there. The walls close in on me. I love to learn, love to be taught, but not in the prosaic atmosphere of most colleges. I am torn in this sense. I feel I’m missing out on a great future because I’m not made to dwell there, in the grayness of mathematics, sciences, etc. 
So, I dream, I write, I push myself in other places... 
Lots to discuss.
Be insane. 
Emil 

Grant writes:

So you’re ok with my (hyper) sensitive side then? Good, cause I have serious trouble opening up to people; esp. men. Yes, gay men are the hardest things in the world to deal with. Sometimes I wish I were lesbian; women are so sweet and sensitive. Unlike many gay men who have trouble attaching and keeping commits I am perhaps too reliable for my own good, and ever-loyal. I let the little things go and focus on the heart of the person. A good heart doesn’t betray and is always understanding and forgiving. Unless the problem is immutable. I don’t like the very impersonal American culture that has developed. I like personability and closeness. Maybe I’m strange or crazy and old-fashioned. Whatever! It’s them. their problem, not me or mine, right? There are just certain standards of respectability that should not be violated. Like others’ feelings. Am I making any sense? 
There are only very few “exclusive” people I can let affect me very deeply. I think you will be one of those people. I guess I’ll find out when I meet you. If at first I seem uncomfortable or withdrawn, don’t take it personally, either. I’m just suspicious and uncomfortable around people I’ve never met. You will probably need to be aggressive with me, as most of my close friends have had to make the first strong effort. I may seem distant and cool at first, but I should warm up quickly. 
Maybe you can meet my  uncle too. Another gay Assyrian man. We’ll just all be one big happy family. There I go; Mr. Idealism; everyone’s gonna love everyone again. 
I am much more sane today than yesterday and appreciate your definition of sanity. 
I’m really looking forward to the weekend now. We have to share poetry and writing. I haven’t read all your journals but can tell you have a genuine love of the power of the pen. 
What else should you know before we meet so I don’t scare you? I’m somewhat obsessed with Madonna, but that’s not very unusual for a young queer boy. I can be very blunt and honest at times, but never tactless. I don’t know. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination and surprise you. Better start this homework now.
Write, love, be merry,
Grant

Thanks once more for opening up and sharing, Grant. I appreciate your “paranoia”, and understand the fear of exposure- I had it too, as an artist, as a gay man, and especially as a gay Assyrian artist. Our poems, creative expressions, etc. as people of color are tender though vehement. They are made from the most precious of fears and anger, the most thread-like memories and hurts. I saw my own rage in the poem you shared and it was like breathing deeply after having been held under water for so long. After a baptism that was forced on me. As your dad’s tyranny was forced on you and your mother. 
As much as I have changed over the years I am beginning to see that I am still simultaneously loud while silent, outspoken while shy, awkward while graceful. I guess I’m trying to say that it is possible to be more than one thing at once. I think it’s great that you’re struggling to grow and improve and shed the skins of youth, but just don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Half of it isn’t even about what we do but how well we surrender to time and to life, to the years, to friendships, and to forgiveness. I know it sounds too romantic, too ideal, but being happy, secure, feeling safe while still insane is possible. Sometimes I can’t tell if my life is better now because I scrambled so much in my youth for sense and meaning or if time just gives us this serenity as we age. How much did I actually have to do with it? 
Writing is a personal thing. To share it takes great courage. Thanks for giving me a glimpse into a piece I found strong and poignant. I liked its rage. I could identify with it. I liked its progression in time, which gave me a sense of motion, as though I was not sitting at the computer and reading, but floating through time. It was far from shiftless. 
The goodness is in you. You’ve just had some terribly traumatic years, which will soon fade and fail to have any hold over you. I still feel at times that I am a good decent kid who is forced to interact with ignoble characters on a dangerous playground that’s left un-monitored. 
We share this, not just you and I, but you, me, and millions of other amazing human beings. It feels good to know this. It abates my lingering feelings of isolation. 
Be well, be grand, be fabulous,
E

Emil, I now know that I can trust you fully. Or, as fully as I can for not having met you. Your last letter was absolutely a pleasure to read and comforted me that you understood me so thoroughly. I can’t wait to meet you now. I don’t know that you quite understand how bizarre I am, but you shall see. Have you decided on a place and a time? 
Eventually I do want to meet all those other queer Assyrians you know. 
Martin tells me you’re a playwright? I would love to read some of your work. I wanted to be a playwright and a poet and a writer in general. Speaking of writers, do you know who Gloria Anzaldua is? She’s a Chicana lesbian radical feminist writer; quite famous. She did pioneering work in multiple identities formation. I went to hear her speak tonight and felt like she was talking to me in a way, but that it didn’t really apply to me in another. I don’t know, I think my insecurities overtake me most of the time slanting my perception of “reality”. No, that’s wrong. I have a problem letting men in. Women are usually so easy to befriend. Men scare and threaten me. I had several men complimenting me with their eyes today, but found myself threatened and withdrawn; and yes, even snobby; borderline rude. I just wanted to go “what the fuck are you staring at?!?!” But I just shut down and clammed up instead; which is almost as bad. Maybe I didn’t want to believe that anyone could be attracted to me? For what though? I think I can’t accept that cause I don’t like myself half the time. 
I’m so excited to meet you. Now I’ll have three khatis (my sisters.) I feel good having close Assyrian friends. You’re my first gay Assyrian friend, though. Martin claims he’s bisexual. Other than my uncle you are the only very confidently and comfortably open gay Assyrian. And thank you so much for that. And for making it publicly accessible. 
And don’t think I’m glorifying you. Well, I am to a certain extent. But I know that you’re fallible and imperfect and, of course, I am quite weary of you because of your sex. Thinking of you as my khati does help considerably though. 
Do you ever feel like a different species? For being Assyrian, for being gay, for being observant, for being? Sometimes I feel so out of place, like I’m not one of them, you know? Like I don’t have an identity or community. I might as well be a Martian half the time. What am I talking about? Of course you know. 
Aten khati (you my sister.) Did I say that right?
Hugs, kisses, Divine Decadence (I’m on a 70s/disco kick right now.)
Grant Rimbaud Foucault

Someone named Raymond writes this to All Out There:

I would just like to applaud the courage that you have displayed with your website. Although I’m not gay, I often questioned my sexuality at about the same age your diary was written. I myself kept a diary and it’s amazing how similar some of the themes are, especially considering that I am a Mexican-American born and raised in L.A. I was just trying to do a little research on Assyrians to try to get a better understanding of the intolerance often demonstrated in the Assyrian culture and then to my amazement I come across your wonderful website. My fiancee is Assyrian and her parents sent her away from Chicago because she was dating a Mexican-American. Hmmm... let’s see, where could we send our daughter to get away from Mexicans? Los Angeles! Anyway, I could really relate to a lot on your website and it brought back some good and not so good teenage memories. Thank you for sharing.

Raymond’s fiancee writes:

Hi Emil, my name is Alexandra. At 1 a.m. Raymond comes in to tell me that he finally found a “real” Assyrian, not someone who is just into the pomp and circumstance of a good name. I read some of your journal entries, and my heart breaks. I don’t feel sorry for you- no. I feel sorry for the closed-mindedness and intolerance of Assyrians. I would like to meet you some day. You are always welcome at my home- please take me seriously. I live in Pasadena, Ca. I would love to just sit and have tea with someone who speaks Assyrian and is willing to come to my house even though “I’m living in sin” by being unmarried.
Good for you Emil- you have not picked the easiest battle... 

It’s a Saturday night and I am home alone. Jackie and Mom-Suzie are in Modesto for a wedding. I am sipping gin and tonic. I am enjoying my room, the blue-gray color of the walls, the lighting. It is not 1999, the brink of a new millennium, but 1993. I have been living on a farm.
My writing is changing, improving, striving. It is at times deeply moving. It even has a style of its own. But a new dilemma arises in this very bizarre endeavor to unburden myself of all my secrets and to help others. The sexual years are here and more is to come, so I am feeling shy, insecure, unwilling to divulge. But what should I censor? What should I leave untouched? I think I ought to remain loyal to the story. Be brave and tell the original authentic story, even if it hurts my mother, somehow, somewhere down the line.
I never imagined what a growing experience posting my diary would be. Not on this level. It requires me to challenge my fears, test my shame, come out and come forth with all truth and honesty. It is forcing me to accept myself and take responsibility for my past, for my life. I have learned that giving is about losing parts of oneself and gaining new parts. That the art of giving, the joy in helping demands of the contributor almost superhuman strength. And maybe giving requires us to be foolish. It counts!
My circle of Arab and Assyrian friends grows. I find strength in numbers. Wael and I are on new terms, but only in my mind. I no longer desire him, but have graduated to a loyal feeling of brotherhood and friendship. I have passed through the amorous gates at last! This I realize at Wael’s Oakland apartment where a handsome group of gay Arab men congregate, including the writer Rabih Alammadine. Amahl is there with us. With the men I am aloof, maybe flirtatiously so, but I am really attempting to move beyond my games and be indifferent. But the passion and joy of meeting new people, making lasting friendships remains. I realize that with Wael I was not forthcoming with my feelings and affection because I have learned for so long to exist in shame regarding my same-sex attractions. All my life I have lived in fear that my feeling for others of my own gender are sinful and must be denied, or rather suffered shamefully and secretly. I think because of this habit, this kind of memory and association, I still feel the urge to become mysterious and aloof.
Naturally, I must overcome this pattern, too!
Wael e-mails that “someone” at the party liked me, but he will not tell me who, and I, out of defiance, do not pursue it. He only writes, “That person will tell when the time comes.” This adds intrigue to my life.
I fell in love with everyone there...