OH, HOW GAY

I have admittedly weird habits for a straight guy. I like musicals. I read tabloids for the celebrity gossip. And I even watch "The View." I look at it like I'm spying behind enemy lines, or at least getting a new perspective.
So, I now see life through the eyes of a fat 45 year old lesbian named Rosie.
I never encountered much gayness when I was growing up. I was raised a strict Catholic in the heart of Arkansas, so I was DOUBLE homophobic. And naive.
When I was looking for my first apartment in Chicago over a decade ago (YIKES), the rental lady said, "I've got a good place at a great price...but it's kinda near Boys Town." I thought she meant I'd be living near the Catholic boys' orphanage, not the gayest neighborhood in Chicago. So i said, "not only would I not mind living there, I'd like to volunteer."
I thought she looked at me funny as I signed the lease, but I figured, "$465 a month? HEEEEYYYYY."
The first day I moved in, a local weekly paper had a cover story saying "Welcome to Boys Town." So i sat down in a diner across the street and decided to read up on my new neighborhood. The article started by saying "I live on the gayest street in America: Belmont and Hawthorne in Chicago." Just then i looked out the window to see the street signs on my corner, which read "Broadway" and "Hawthorne." Yikes.
I tried to hide the fact I was living there from my family. But thenmy brother accidentally visited during Gay Pride Weekend and saw the big rainbow flags everywhere, incluidng one that was the size of a block-long building.
So he's freaking out but then when he couldn't sleep well on the floor, he wound up climbing into my futon with me. So there we wer, spending a night next to each other in a homophobic panic, thinking "Thank GOD no one's seeing this" - worrying more about people thinking we were merely gay than I was about the fact they might realize we're brothers and think of incest. But then again, we were from Arkansas, and in some parts of that state, one is a little more common than the other if you catch my drift.
Then we woke up the next morning tot he sound of booming disco and the sight of a guy in assless chaps dancing on a parade float. Gayest street in America, indeed.
Of course nothing happened to me while living there. But I made damn sure not to renew my lease, and now I realize how stupid that was. It was easily the cleanest neighborhood I've ever lived in, and loads of hot women lived there because they felt it was the safest place in the city for them. They actually paid attention to me there because being a straight guy in that neighborhood actually made me exotic.
I learned one important lesson from that year: how silly homophobia is. Some people act like they're more scared of gay people than they are of bees. And that's just crazy, because sure, a gay guy might sting you, but at least they won't swarm.
Even I don't know what that means.
Peace.