Copyright © 2007 Sticky Pen

In Kentucky, there is no “gay scene”, at least not where I live. The only gay people I’ve ever even seen are a few feminine guys in my high school, and a few older lesbian couples that everyone stares at in the grocery store. So in other words, no one I’d be interested in. Until Dane’s family moved in next door. I’d seen him around school looking lost and pissed off, so I decided to be nice and help him out. Who knows? Maybe he’d turn out to be totally different from everyone else at this school, and actually be interesting. I helped him find his locker and his classes that day, and even sat with him at lunch. He was pretty quiet, but still nice. I wasn’t exactly a big talker myself. On the walk home from school he told me his family had moved here from Boston and he wasn’t happy about it, in fact he was refusing to speak to his parents. I told him he could hang out at my house if he wanted a break from the tension and he agreed. He told me his plans about what he was going to do after he graduated in a few weeks, they were not unlike my own, getting the hell away from Kentucky and living in a big city where there would be more culture. Then he said something that made my stomach flip flop… “Thank God I broke up with my boyfriend before we moved down …

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Copyright © 2008 Sticky Pen

“…This just in – there is a major winter storm warning in effect this afternoon for all of the North Shore area. Heavy snow accumulation of 12-14 inches expected over the next 8 hours. Residents are encouraged to stay off the roads and indoors so as not to hamper emergency crews. More from our radio weatherman, Will Dowser…” Wonderful. In the words of the poet E. E. Cummings, just “puddle-wonderful”. It had been snowing off-and-on for the last week, and we already had over a foot of snow on the ground, and yet more coming. As if this entire week had not been pressure enough, and as if everything else had not gone wrong, now this too. Happy New Year! I was sitting in my office cubicle trying to decide whether to cry like a baby or start smashing furniture. It was the second week in January, which every year is Hell Week for my department (payroll), of which I am assistant manager. All of the payroll and taxation adjustments for the new year had to be in the system by midnight tonight – Friday – so they would populate in time to be tested before the first pay ran early next week. This process was usually stressful enough, but this year we were short-handed, and both myself and the Payroll Manager were new to our positions. So far, everything we had tested had come out wrong, and we had just about 10 hours to get it right. At that moment, …

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