Dear Diary,

Well, it’s been busy past couple of weeks!  Jesus got into a ton of trouble and they crucified him.  We tried to help, but he just kept being all calm and cool, I think it just pissed the Jews off more.  However, to their credit, they did crucify him on the start of their Passover, and they aren’t allowed to eat bread or anything, so maybe they were just hungry and took their anger out on Jesus.  I just don’t know.  In any case, we put him a tomb.

Three days passed and we all were real sad.  After like two days all I could think about was how much longer we were going to mourn.  I mean, I can still mourn while playing Wii Rock Throwing, ya know? 

Then, this is gonna be a WHOA, his body disappeared from the tomb.  Well everyone was like, “OMG, he’s alive, he has risen,” blah blah blah.  I didn’t believe it.  I mean come on, he hadn’t eaten for like weeks, they nailed him to a cross, and then you expect me to believe he can move a stone that weighs a ton?  PUHLEASE!

Then Mary (not the Mom, the other one, that everyone is convinced nailed Jesus the other way, if-you-know-what-I-mean), comes running in screaming, “He’s alive! He’s alive!”  Of course everyone got excited, but I was like, “Sorry, no, you’re crazy, eat some carbs or something.” 

“No, Thomas, I’ve seen him,” Mary says.

“Really?  How can you have seen him.  They crucified him!  Jesus said himself there were going to be false prophets.  This could be a trick or false marketing,” I said.

“We have to believe,” Mama Jesus (the other Mary) said.

“I want to, but I can’t.  I have to see for myself, I have feel his wounds.  Unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails, I won’t believe.”

And then, like magic, Jesus teleported in.

“Peace be with you,” he said, which was good, because we all were sufficiently spooked.

Then he walks through the room, coming right to me.  I felt strange, like I was the kid getting picked on by the teacher. 

“Thomas, put your finger in it.”

Ew, I know, TMI!

All I could think to say was, “My Lord and My God,” and then fall to my knees, because I really didn’t want to put my finger in it.

“Yes, you believe because you have seen me.  Blessed are those who believe without seeing,” said Jesus.  He always has to get the last word.

Eventually he was just like, “I am with you, until the end of the world,” and then just like he entered he left, teleporting.

So, yeah, it’s been cra cra in Jerusalim.  But there is a new Starbucks opening, so things are looking up. 

More later!  Thaddeus and I are going back to the tomb to look for the trap door.    

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I was raised Mormon. It wasn’t easy growing up Mormon and gay. Unlike Catholics, I didn’t have priests to show me the way.

When I was baptized I knew it was a bad idea. I figured I’d try to stump them, so I asked where all the black people were. They immediately said Gladys Knight was Mormon. I know, I was shocked by that too, I had no idea the midnight train stopped in Salt Lake City.

I’m originally from a small town in Missouri, Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. Very quaint, simple little town centered around the train station and high school football team. We’re famous for the local pizza guy kidnapping a kid and keeping him in the basement for 4 years. But he made great pizza!

So you’d image that being gay and Mormon in a small conservative town in the heart of the Midwest must have been difficult. You’d be wrong.

Watching the “It Gets Better” videos has left me feeling like somehow I missed out on something.  Where’s my agony?  My heartache?  I was so painfully well adjusted with liberal parents (sure we’re Mormon, but we were like the affirmative action family for the Mormons, they kept us around because we made them seem populist).  Instead of wearing black or a trench-coat or some other hate crime inspiring apparel, I wore khaki’s, sweater vests and pastels.  Finding out I was gay was about as shocking as running into Newt Gingrich at a buffet.

Not once was there ever a time when anyone thought I was anything but gay.  I’m a gold star gay, I’ve never been with a woman.  I just recently learned women don’t pee through that little “man in the boat” situation downstairs.  My mother would even say, “When you kids grow up an have children,” and then to look to me and say, “… or adopt.”  There was always an alternative for me.

Every gay guy has that one special gal, in my case, I had an entire family.  They were the Whites (that’s their last name, not just white people in general, however the Whites are in fact white).

There was Judy, the Mom, whose creativity and unique point of view showed me that I could say anything I wanted if I just owned it.  Meredith, the universal baby sister to us all, whose warmth and kindness is masked by a fierce determination to accomplish anything (picture Hillary Clinton talking Osama bin Laden down while wearing pearls).  Finally Lori (L-O-R-I, thank you very much), who had this boldness and awesome sense of self (and just a flat out genius).  Over the years we spent together, these three women became my second family. Together the three of them made what would be like a super hero gay man.

We had a tendency to dress in themes for dances (I know!).   I dressed as Elvis Costello once for Lori.  My real last name is Hoeninger, but is often mispronounced as “Ho-Nigger.” Which is just another reason why it was destiny for us to join forces. Together we became a collective White Ho-Nigger.

As a comedian, you take adversity and turn it into comedy. I’d probably be more successful if I were to have, I dunno, a mini-bout with being bipolar, some sort of bullying, maybe a pathetic attempt at suicide involving a broken Madonna cd, I-don’t-know. Instead all I got is that, because of the Whites, my awesome parents, and some strange element of “I-don’t-give-a fuck” attitude, I went to a high school dance dressed as Elton John in a pink boa (you read that right), and be crowned King!  To quote my friend Sharon Spell, it never really could get better for me, it’s more like “It plateaued.”

I’m surprised that we didn’t encounter complimentary condoms and lube upon entering the room.  Maybe a sling hanging from the ceiling?  Perhaps a listing of all the available Asians in town.  You call for a wake up call and the next morning you get a lecture about AIDS.

Gay travel is now a huge industry.  Think about it, lots of expendable income and few children.  It’s gotten so huge now that even that Vatican is offering a special tour by excommunicated priests through Rome’s gay bar scene.  No worries, none are within a 100 feet of a school.

I wouldn’t consider myself a gay traveler per se.  I’m a traveler that just happens to be gay.  In a gay bar.   On Grindr.   Drinking low calorie drinks.

I once experienced the seedy downstairs area of Berlin gay bars.  I hooked up with a guy.  It was fun, you’ve got to experience it.  When you do, can you look for my wallet?  It just disappeared down there.

You haven’t lived until you’re drinking whiskey and Fresca in a Jacuzzi at 3 am at a hotel outside the Grand Canyon.  However, you can live without seeing two overweight siblings make out naked in front of you.  Let’s just say, even if we were in Philadelphia, that would be taking the idea of “brotherly love” too far.

This happened a couple years ago on vacation with some friends.  We met some very handsome British fellows (no relation to the before mentioned smooching siblings).  It’s true what they say about the British, they really are gay until proven straight (not these guys, they are totally straight and just seem gay because of their cool accents, I mean I think, whose to say they haven’t had a little tickle time at 14, no judgment, a little turned on right now, moving on…).

But we’ve all asked ourselves the same thing upon meeting someone from Europe, “Are they gay or just European?”  I hate to even think of the one guy who encountered Hitler, inferred too much, made a pass, and well, I think we know how this ended.  It’s tragic to think that Evan Braun had to live out his final days as Eva Braun.

We’re coming to an end on our Costa Rica adventure.  If I take away one thing from this vacation it’s this: no matter how hard I try, I will never, ever, be able to get to “¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!” out of my head in a Spanish speaking country.

Getting my body beach ready for my upcoming vacation ain’t easy, but it’s moderately funny.