Looking at this snapshot now makes me laugh. It’s a little embarrassing remembering my habit of licking my lips, turning my head to one side, and squinting just before every picture because I thought it made me look mysterious. But it’s a habit that paid off years later in the bars when I was learning how to cruise. I came out when I was twenty-three years old. My effort at being straight—marriage and child—failed miserably, and I didn’t see the point in lying anymore. It wasn’t a perfect coming-out experience by any means, but we all survived.
