Off the wagon.

I was clean for almost a year, but I fell off the wagon last week. I had a weird dream about World of Warcraft (too weird and abstract to really explain) and then next morning I was downloading the game and reactivating my account. That took a bit, especially when facing Windows Vista issues when trying to apply patches. But I'm back.

Being a full time dad is tiring, but my son does sleep in good chunks so I do have some free time to kill, but due to fragmented sleep not enough concentration to actually do anything really productive. Hopefully that will change as he'll gradually sleep more through the night and so will I. So I decided to use the free time to play some WoW again.

And it feels good. Most particularly the guild chat and being able to joke around with many friends while completing repetitive yet addictive tasks. Most of my friends moved a server so I created a new character there and still wait for my main Rogue (or Puppy Love fame, see side bar) to be moved in a paid transfer. Unfortunately this is delayed due to some payments problems though I know my card is fine as I used it to reactivate the account only days ago. Weird.

It's odd considering I was sure that I was done with the game for good. Damn you Blizzard.

Gay Fathers of Toronto

In anticipation for our son's birth, I created a Facebook group for gay parents in London. With London being such a supposedly gay friendly place I expected to be flooded with new members. As of today there are only 22 members, most of them are lesbian couples with a few people who wish to become parents and those who had their children before coming out of the closet. For all I know there are no people in our situation in the group yet, a married gay couple who conceived a child using in vitro fertilization. While I'm happy to associate with any type of gay parent, it'll be nice to know people more like us. We have met only one couple so far, entirely by chance, at the clinic where our son was conceived.

Last Thursday we attended a meeting held by GFT: Gay Fathers of Toronto. It is surprising and disappointing that there's no similar organization in London. London seems to be very gay friendly when it comes to "the scene", but not so much when it comes to gay families. But that's a subject for another post.

From the website we knew more or less what to expect from the meeting. Most of the men that night (if not everyone but us) became fathers the "normal" way and only came out of the closet later. It turns out that Blake was the first baby to attend the meetings so we made a bit of local history. We tried attending since we got to Toronto, but ended up missing it again and again for various reasons. We made quite an entrance with the stroller and Blake was quite well behaved throughout the meeting as long as one of us kept moving his stroller back and forth.

I exchanged looks with my husband. We both initially thought the same thing: what are we doing here? This is not what we wanted. But as the evening went on we found ourselves joining the discussion passionately, sharing experiences from our growth during the last decade. Many of the men there were quite closeted and we had to fight the urge to grab them by the hand and pull them out of the closet. I know it's not an easy process for most people and it certainly wasn't for me all these many years ago when I was certain I'll only come out of the closet once my mother passed away.

As a teenager I was very scared and couldn't imagine my future, it was all just a blank. And here I am thirty years old, married and a parent. I have this urge to outreach other young homosexuals and show them that being gay doesn't mean they can't have a family or be happy. After the meeting on Thursday I realized that age has nothing to do with it. Homosexuals of all ages need to have that message drilled into their heads.

I really think we had a positive impact on those people and we'll be happily attending any other meetings that will be held before we return to London next month.

--Mickey

Fatherhood

My son was born seven weeks ago and now that I'm getting over the initial baby shock I'll be trying to write again.

I planned to write a lot about the experience of being a parent, but when it actually happened not was I only too tired to write, I also found the whole experience to be very personal. But I guess I can share some aspects of my new life.

I don't really recognize my life anymore. So many changes in so little time. First I left my job of over three years and now I'm in Toronto for several months away from every semblance of my former life with the sole exception of my husband who is my only constant. I especially miss my dogs so much that it hurts. We had a picture of them as the laptop's wallpaper, but it had to be changed as it became too painful to look at it.

And there's of course this little guy who needs to be taken care of full time. Since my husband still works on the phone and the computer, it means that I need be the full time mommy, a job I enjoy most of the time. I haven't had a good nigh sleep since the birth, but I got used to it by now. Overall my son is a very good baby. The long term plan is for me to kick off my freelance career again or at least use the time to write more, but with the lack of sleep I find it hard to concentrate and produce work. At least I get enough time between feedings and changing and bottle making to genuinely relax by taking extra naps, play videogames or watch TV.

A nap right now would actually be nice!

--Mickey