Do I Look Fat

I was born and raised in Palo Alto, California to a beautiful young couple who were what F. Scott Fitzgerald called 'Cafe Society' and I was sure a terrible mistake had been made and the wrong child had been delivered to Buckingham Palace while I withered in resentment waiting for the Royal family to recognize they had been given the wrong baby. That was one year before the attack on Pearl Harbor that started World War II. My resentment simmered and distilled as the mistake grew ever more obvious to me, but each member of my family and 'support network' continued blindly thinking I belonged where I was. I despised the college town I'd been dumped in and the upper middle class dolts who preened and prided themselves over trivia and drivel in my presence.

Along came my imagination to the rescue and a parallel reality began supplanting what was being forced upon me. I became inseparable from a new friend no one else could seem to see or hear, and I started finding peace and something to hold onto. My Grandmother felt I was too FAT, and when my Mom and Dad left her in charge while away, she started flushing butter down the toilet to 'help' me lose weight. My Dad was impatient with me and forced his will on me and that enraged me so I dreamed of his demise. One night when I was eight, Mom awakened me very late and told me Dad had gone to heaven and that I was now the man of the house. I was secretly thrilled that he was out of my way and that I now could start making choices I'd wanted to for most of my few years. Mom started using prescription medications to ease the loss of the man she loved so much and who I had despised with equal gusto for reasons I still don't understand.

I stayed FAT until I was ready to leave Jordan Junior High for Palo Alto High and I wanted to change and become popular. I started borrowing my Mom's medicines and I learned which ones gave me diarrhea and which induced vomiting and I started to control my weight under my own direction and actually became popular although I remained convinced it was a very superficial and unreliable popularity. I'd discovered drinking by this time and drank to get drunk regularly at home with few negative consequences. My Mom one night cautioned me as I lay draped over the toilet bowl puking that if I was going to drink heavily like most decent men did, I'd better learn to drink like a gentleman and remain conscious and civil at all times. I was also soon to learn of the many things that help the heavy drinker to deal with simple discomforts like a hangover and the shakes, both helped by oxygen and injections of vitamin B 12, hair of the dog and modest amounts of tranquilizers which I was soon carrying with me everywhere I went along with a small assortment of pain killers.

As head of the house with two younger brothers, a very ill Mom and no rules to speak of, I'd stopped attending school most of the time and consequently didn't graduate from High School. My two brothers missed that milestone also. I decided to go to Europe with one of my brothers as our friends all left to go to college and we enrolled at The University of Paris on a gray Monday in October 1958 and withdrew that afternoon so we could explore the possibilities of young men fancy free and footloose in post war Europe with well to do family back home. It was now that I started having consequences of my drinking and had to start confronting my homosexuality, and my solution was to drink and deny harder than ever. I had remained a 'FAT' young man and found relief and escape in eating foods now considered unhealthy to excess.

I decided that I would need some education to make my way in life so obtained a GED equivalent and then attended a Junior College and transferred to San Jose State University majoring in Philosophy because the faculty all seemed to drink at my favorite bar and I thought I should drink with them and wax philosophic to get the grades I wanted. I was living with my best friend from high school who I was in love with although he was straight and I had helped his Father start a small business. The Father was alcoholic and became unable to continue running his business and asked me to take the business over and employ his son in exchange for forgiving the debt he owed me and I accepted his proposition. I quit college and my best friend and I became business partners and continued living together. I was happier than I'd ever been and our business became successful in the early days of Silicon Valley. That success allowed me to continue my drinking career and the three martini lunch became a daily ritual.

Things progressed until in my late 20's I was hospitalized and my partner fell in love with a beautiful woman and married. My Mom died soon after that and I had a nervous breakdown and walked away from the business and didn't work for two years but drank heavier than ever and added more drugs to my daily ritual. I moved to San Francisco and opened my first bar and restaurant which allowed me to drink and live on my terms more than ever before. That first joint soon begot another one and then another and I could drink pretty much wherever I went for free. I remained 'FAT' all these years and hated myself for that and much more.

I had never really accepted being gay and had prayed to me struck straight most of my life like I prayed to be struck thin. I met a young man and we had a seven year relationship that I tried to have from only my point of view and that eventually soured and he found someone he was able to build a life with and they remain together after more than 20 years. I never had another relationship and continued working around the booze business in one capacity or another until my decisions finally got so bad I lost everything. I tested HIV positive in the late 1980s and felt that I now had permission to drink and drug without restriction and wallowed in self pity. I finally found something that stopped me from being 'FAT' in Aids and was again happy until the consequences of that kind of weight loss became too dangerous. I was given the chance to change my life through a spiritual experience that has left me sober and 'FAT' and more accepting of the man I am and always have been.

I finally am aware that I am more than a victim and that 'FAT' is only a small part of who I am, and that I am a full and good human being worthy of starting to live the life I've been given and changing the things I can while accepting those I can't. I remain 'FAT' but have found that when I want to change that I can and sometimes do. More importantly to me today is that I have a fundamental hope and faith that I am a part of the human race and that 'FAT' is just another part of my experience.

Stu continues to call San Francisco home and still loves it. A single gay senior who is also a long term survivor of AIDS, Stu has the good fortune to be busy in a variety of things including volunteering for several boards like Shanti, The Richmond Ermet Aids Foundation, The Aids Research Institute of UCSF, The San Francisco Bay Area Publicity Club, The Citywide Alcoholism & Drug Advisory Board, The Paratransit Coordinating Council, Planning For Elders and AccesSF Cable Television while at the same time publishing his online magazine Baghdad by the Bay (www.bagdadbythebay.com) and producing music fundraising events for his own and many other non profits through Tin Pan Alley Productions (www.tinpanalley.org). Stu tries living in the present and follows a spiritual path in recovery that he shares with others and tries to practice. Feel free to contact Stu about any new opportunity or challenge at Stusmith97@aol.com or Stu@tinapanalley.org.