David's Story Part 10: August 2003

8/18/03
Mary

I went to Polly’s wedding over the weekend. It was lovely of course. Hubby got very sick and stayed home. Fortunately David decided to stay too. He is still pretty clingy and the thought of that on top everything was too much. Andrew and Brian went along though. So I am feeling pretty pooped...5 hours driving each day.

I have got everyone registered for school, next is school supplies. It can be so very expensive. David has a reading disability and so is a special ed student. We spent two hours waiting at the school on Friday to get him registered; the counselor that we waited so long to see though could not sign him up for classes because he was special ed. The special ed teacher called us this morning and we ran in to meet her. She is a very cool person. Clearly she likes helping kids. She also has a rainbow stripe sticker behind her desk. We told her that we liked it and she told David that her classroom was one of the safest places on campus. I wondered if something in his file indicated he is gay. Then it occured to me that a woman who puts up a rainbow striped sticker in her high school classroom, and sees a 16-year-old kid grinning because of it, can probably figure stuff out for herself. Anyway, it was a good meeting.

8/21/03

American Idol is coming to The City on Sunday. Desiree works at the Pavilion where it is playing and gave David two free tickets. He says she is his new best friend. Actually he is pleased because his actual best friend really wanted to go and now he can take her. He has not often been able to treat his friends.

Wednesday nights the kids from the GLBT youth group meet at a coffee place in The City. I went to pick David up and one of the boys came over to ask if I was David’s new mom, and was it true that I was Carl's mom too. I said yes and he asked if he could hug me, he was so glad that David was in a safe place. I let him, of course.

There is something addictive about being a GLBT ally. Even though things are getting better gay and lesbian people still have to deal with a lot of sh*t. They are so happy to meet allies. That of course is why Desiree has started dropping by all the time -- she does not have the support of her own parents and she needs some substitute parenting.

The whole first month was calm, quiet and happy. We got ready to go back to school; the boys played. I wrote little about David because there just was not much to write. If I had written to Mary daily I would have said, "Temperatures continue to be over 100. Boys are playing nicely together in the cool basement. I am busy planning for classes."

David's Story Part 1: The Beginning
David's Story Part 11: September 2003