Quarantine

Last week during one of our marathon telephone conversations my mother asked me which one of us, me or Frank, was the woman in our relationship. ‘Neither of us, obviously, ’I said. ‘That’s what makes us gay.’ ‘Very funny, ‘my mom said. ‘Someone on Oprah said that often gay couples have one person who plays the man and the other who plays the woman. So I was wondering which you were.’ ‘Frank and I don’t believe in hetero-normative gender roles, ‘I told her. I knew my mom didn’t know what ‘hetero-normative’ meant, so I figured she’d drop it. ‘So who does the cooking and cleaning?’ She asked. I could have truthfully answered ‘neither of us.’ Instead I asked,’ Is that what you think womanhood is, Mom, cooking and cleaning?’