Part XLIX

Sometime during October of 1986, one of Gary's room mates gave his notice and I moved into his old room on November 1st. During this month Kurt also asked me to look at re-writing or doctoring a part of his script for the Christmas play and I turned my five lines into a sizable part. My friend Jon asked me if I would go to Winter Formal with his sister who was a junior, and although I did not know her well...she was cute, so I said yes. November came and I went to the dance and dinner with Laura, but we were not meant for each other and I had some reservations about dating a new friend's sister, so I never asked her out after that. I also was recruited and hired as the Assistant Manager at a clothing store just down the way in the mall and I did relatively well there, but always tried to get other guys better sales and mine suffered. I was used to spending Thanksgiving alone and when all the roomies went away, I spent Thanksgiving at our place alone. I wrote a one-act play that day on a yellow pad, but never performed it or even showed it to anyone. It was an honest look at being alone on holidays and I think it must have hit too close to home for me. The day before that I had called my friend Paul and had ended up talking to his Mom for a bit, when she found out I was going to be alone for Thanksgiving she invited me to spend the time with their family, but I assured her I was fine. She insisted that I come over and spend Christmas with them and I readily accepted that invitation. Paul was my friend, he had a good looking sister and I liked his family so it was really nice for them to ask. I doubt his Mom ever asked either Paul, his sister or his Dad before she invited me, but they were very gracious in taking in the stray. It was really nice of them and I have fond memories of that time.

In the middle of December, we performed the play with the unoriginal title of "the Christmas Gift." Kurt asked me to tell my story, or give my testimony in the language of the Christian community, and I agreed. I guess I just had never told anyone how recent my conversion was, because the response was a little drastic, including our High School pastor's immediate concern about my serving in any capacity in the church due to spiritual immaturity. That night also has an interesting asterisk, it was the last time in telling my story that I used the disingenuous line, "and everything was better after that." Life does not seem to work that way. There is an ebb and flow of good and bad and God has never promised that everything will go our way if we will do X. But, I did not understand that at the time and said what I thought was expected. After the play, Kurt asked me if I would direct a musical he had written for the Junior Highers and I agreed with one caveat, if I could serve in the Junior High ministry. I thought he would like that and was really putting the caveat in there as a joke, mostly due to a lack of understanding of how things work in ministry, but eventually he relented and allowed me to serve in his ministry and I began to direct his play.

At the end of the month, the regional manager came in to talk to me about my sales at work and told me that they would prefer to demote me or I could quit. Never being a huge fan of demotion, I quit without any care for the consequences. One of those consequences was that I could not pay rent and I ended up moving out of Gary's place and staying with my friend Mark (not the Mark from High School, the Mark from Church) for a few months. Mark's family was struggling to make ends meet, but I never even thought about that until later. My $200 per month for all expenses probably helped, but I am not sure it covered the hassle of having someone like me under their roof. Also, I was at the church one day and they told me they were looking for a receptionist. I told them I could do the job and they hired me. This was a huge deal, because our church's view at the time was pretty much that God had ordained women for office work...besides I had an earring, wore purple and was involved in theater. I had the unenviable situation of being involved in many things which a large portion of our members used as metaphor for being a homosexual. Little did they know that was not my issue, mine was quite the opposite, but perception is a bummer sometimes and I had an uphill battle from that point forward.