Well if this isn't the “shits and giggles” to throw me off my game? I'm plotting along minding my own damn business and someone has to remind me that it's been 30 years since I took the stage at Lakewood High School to receive what I thought was a well deserved diploma.

How is that possible when I still think of myself as a deer in headlights kind of kid wearing Angel Flight pants, mood rings, a lime green tuxedo and platform shoes? After my initial shock, denial and outright dismissal I opened up the threadbare linen cover of my senior year book and warmed up to the idea of seeing some old friends and to be honest seeing if time and experience had done the same dirty tricks on everyone else that it's done on me. Things didn't end up staying where they were when I was 18 and in some instances that's probably a good thing because my back gave a sigh of relief when I stopped sucking in my stomach and my scalp let out a cheer when I stopped blow drying my hair. I survived the 80's and 90's by the skin of my teeth which taught me that some things just aren't that important.

I'd be lying if I didn't want to brag about something. The truth is I brag allot but not about what I thought I might while I was standing under Johnny Appleseed. I never got my red Alpha Romeo Spider but I brag about my 12 nieces and nephews scattered all over Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania and that I'll be a Great Uncle in the spring. After my stints at Baldwin Wallace and Kent State I had an interior design career which never got me the million dollar bank account but I am very proud of my fundraising for HIV/AIDS through DIFFA (Design Industry Fighting AIDS) and my ongoing work today with GMHC (Gay Men's Health Crisis) and my advocacy for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community through HRC (Human Rights Campaign), Immigration Equality and the ACLU.

I closed shop on my interior design career in 1993 and moved to New York in 1995 to pursue my youthful passions that I misplaced for a while. I've been living a bohemian life in the same apartment I moved into 13 years ago which is a stones throw away from Times Square and the Theater District in midtown Manhattan referred to as Hells Kitchen. After a 25 year hiatus I returned to my pottery that was so instrumental in getting me out of gym class and that damn game of “dodge ball”. Thank you Damon Reinagle! I've been writing my memoir for the past several years which I hope to turn into a one man play and perform although I'm still working on my stage fright! Oh to be back at Lakewood Little Theater once again.

In the past 30 years I've adopted three cats and scattered the ashes of two and inherited two chinchillas (live not coats) from my former partner. I give directions to tourists daily because they think I look like a New Yorker whatever the hell that is. I bike down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty every morning even in the cold. I've gained and lost the same 41 pounds so many times over the years I've lost count. I can read a subway sign five blocks away but unfortunately can't read my text messages or my iPod without my cheaters. I've buried too many friends and family and I've made lifetime friendships and have had experiences and gained wisdom that makes me appreciate my parents better than I did when I was a teenager. And with all that I wouldn't trade the past 30 years for anything.

Alfred