Has anyone ever used something that was yours without permission? What happened? I lived in Detroit. And when I moved there, it was a beautiful little neighborhood and a lot of city workers worked in my neighborhood. Policemen, firemen, people who worked for the city. Well, then they took the ban off that, that you had to live in Detroit to work in Detroit, and they moved out into the suburbs and overnight, it seemed, in the span of a year, our neighborhood went from nice, hard-working, family-orientated neighborhood to renters and squatters, and we had a succession of people living next door to us. And I went to my mother's for the weekend, and when I came home, none of my children's things were in the yard. Their bikes were gone, their pool was gone, everything was gone. And it wasn't far. It was right next door, set up in their yard. So I had to go over, and I started emptying the pool to take it down and bring it back. I brought the bikes back. I never said a word to the mother, I just went and got it, and she's like, "What are you doing with my stuff?!" And I told her it's my stuff, and if she had a problem with it, we could call the cops and get them involved. Well, ironically she didn't want to do that. Hmm. I got my stuff, and we had to go retrieve it several times over the, the next course of the next two years. After that, I moved out of Detroit and moved into a little bitty cowtown. Best move I ever made for my children.

I was adopted. So my blood family are people that I've really never met. I did locate and find out who my biological mother was and talked to my biological aunt, and since then my biological mother has passed away, so I never got a chance to meet her. I know that there are a couple of -- I have a couple of half brothers out there and I don't really know how to contact them, or how to get ahold of them, or even if I should, because I was adopted -- I was put up for adoption when I was an infant. My biological mother was not married, and I believe that she went into that with the understanding that this was a totally confidential thing, that that was not -- you know, that she was not -- it was not an open adoption, and I feel bad violating her wishes and her rights to look up family members or instigate too much. Now, my, my cousin came off totally from the opposite perspective when I was talking with her. She was very upset that this was not public information and that she found out -- we found out through 23andMe. And when we looked at how closely related we were, it was like, "This has gotta be." I had at some point in the past, gotten some non-identifying information from the court, and when she told her family story, um, her mother was one of four sisters, as was my biological mother. And when we started connecting all the dots, it was very clear that she was my cousin and that this one particular sister was my biological mother. And -- but they had -- they denied it. They, they -- her mother, her own mother, my biological aunt denied it. And I think it was just back in those days, it was the 50s and I think those secrets, they expected to keep those secrets forever. They promised they wouldn't tell, wouldn't tell the story and they wouldn't, wouldn't betray that confidence, and I had a hard time with, um, with my cousin, 'cause I accepted that and respected that, but she had a hard time realizing there was another family member that her family never told her about. So, um, since then, I think that's sort of lifted away, and I don't talk to her…

There have been times where my parents, um, would not let me hang out with certain friends. I think it was like when I was in maybe 10th grade or 9th grade, and everybody was having boyfriends, and it was all the -- it was cool to be dating, right? And my parents didn't want me to date anybody. And I come from a pretty conservative culture, so, um, it was like the norm not to have a boyfriend. So, two of my best friends had boyfriends, and they were like texting them, you know, um, on the down-low, kinda like keeping it a secret from their parents. But then it kind of got exposed, they got caught, and my parents got to know and my parents called their parents. And like, it was a whole mess between the parents. But then my two friends, even though we were pretty young, they -- I mean, they were annoyed understandably, but they were also kind of understanding that this was not me that was like, calling up their parents, but it was my parents.  And I think them being able to make that distinction really helped me a lot at the time. Of course like, they didn't talk to me for, for like a good two weeks or so after that incident. And it was not just one isolated incident, too. It was like multiple incidents where my parents were being like super overbearing and calling them up and like trying to record our conversations, like my conversations with my friends. Trying to like, intimidate them. I dunno. I really don't know what the purpose of that was. 'Cause either way, I had a boyfriend, and I think I was like, driven to do that even more 'cause my parents, like, put their best effort for me not to have a boyfriend. It was ridiculous, actually. But I guess it's like -- it's a good experience, um, so that I know what to do and what not to do with my own kids if I ever have any.

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. But what I want to say about roommates was that I had the same roommate for 16 years, and then I married her. Or so, that's what some people in our family thought because um, you know, a lot of the time when you are queer or gay or whatnot, you have to stay closeted to some or all of the people you know for some or all time. And, [laughs,] I, I didn't outright lie to some people, but also didn't outright say anything to a lot of people for a lot of the years that I was with my wife because, well, I was kind of in denial for the first literally seven, eight, solid years. But then I admitted it, eight years in, and you know, we told our daughter and she said, "Yeah, of course, I know." [Laughs.] And I guess a lot of people probably did know, but didn't say anything back to us. But yeah, my grandma... The first time I ever said anything about being gay, or being with the person I had showed up to her house with for the past 16 years on Sundays, um, is our invitation to our little reception because we had went down to the courthouse and got married! [Laughs.] A year after -- a year and a day after it was legal nationwide, we went to the courthouse in downtown Detroit and got married in a private little -- we didn't do the bulk -- 'cause they have like a bulk ceremony too, where they marry a bunch of people at once. But we did the little thing in the little chapel with the lady. We had a very nice lovely chaplain, or whatever she was. And we came with my stepdad, her mom, my best friend, our daughter, and then our friend, and we all went downtown Detroit to the big courthouse, got married there and then we walked over and, you know, forgive me if you were a Lafayette [Coney Island] loyalist, but we went to, um, American -- that's what it's called, the one next to it? American Coney Island? Yeah, we went to that one and had some coney dogs and whatnot. Because you know, when in Detroit. Um, and that was our fun little wedding…