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A rocky week

Last  Wednesday I was invited and voted in to join the board of the Boston Bisexual Resource Center. And had a great time with

[info]hwynym

, and  we both really enjoyed having time to hang out after at Bertucci's with most of the new board folks, who are all very smart, sexy, and sweet. I regret not getting to hug the most wonderful 

[info]lilbjorn

 who was also in attendance. The BRC now to me seems a major locus for bisexual activism, especially on the East Coast. I'd like to get more of them to join LJ, so I guess I should post an invite. In any case I'm quite thrilled to contribute something to its future.

It looks like we have consensus to move ahead on a location for the 10th International Conference on Bisexuality to be held in lovely nearby Kingston, RI, combined with the University of Rhode Island  (URI) 14th annual Symposium, where I've spoken and helped program the past four years. The next thing we need to do is choose dates in July 2008. Click here to help organize 10 ICB.

On Thursday morning when I got home from Boston, I got an email from my friend Bernard in San Francisco, telling me that his best friend of 22 years, an ex-lover of mine, Chris Nelson, passed away one week before, on December 7th of a massive heart attack. I called Bernard and he was holding up but I sobbed a bit on the phone while he explained. Bernard said that Chris had just stepped onto the platform at the 16th & Mission BART station coming home to the Firehouse (where I lived with Chris and the offices of Bear magazine) from work. I was floored. I dedicated Bears on Bears in part to Chris. Rocco met Chris at IBR 2005, and I met Tony, his lover. The last time I spoke with Chris on the phone was about four months ago, not including an exchange of voicemail about two months ago.

Bernard and Chris's siblings asked me not to make any sort of major announcement about it, but I don't think my blogging it friends-only here respectfully now would be against Chris's wishes. I may be wrong on this account. I already told the folks at Beef magazine, who got me in touch (thanks to Scott McGillivray) with Richard Bulger, the first publisher (and cofounder with Chris) of Bear magazine, and Chris's partner before my brief, rocky tenure with Chris. Yesterday Bernard (who signs his letters “Bear.nard”)  sent this amazing encounter with a peregrine after the burial.

I have mixed feelings about posting the news here. I want to respect Chris's wishes – he was a very private man – but I think there are a lot of people who loved him who would want to know of his untimely passing.

All sorts of other stuff going on but I just can't stand this fucking LJ Autosave screen-blinking any more for today. Happy holidays, all.

Published by Ron Suresha

Ron Jackson Suresha is an editor, anthologist, and writer. He is considered an authority on emergent queer masculinities, in particular the subcultures of gay and bi male Bears and of male bisexuality. For Ron's service to the bear community, he was named "Bear of the Year" 2008. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Suresha attended the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1976-8), where he studied creative writing, and Vista College (Berkeley, Cal., 1989-92), where he studied American Sign Language. For more than two decades, he has worked as a freelance proofreader for trade book publishers such as Shambhala Publications. He was married in October 2004 to Rocco Russo. He is also a licensed Justice of the Peace in Connecticut, an ordained minister, ULC, and a member of the New London Green Party. Nonfiction works include Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions; Bi Men: Coming Out (coeditor, with Pete Chvany); Bisexual Perspectives on the Life and Work of Alfred C. Kinsey (editor). His latest book is The Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin: Stories, jests, and donkey tales of the beloved Persian folk hero, published by Lethe Press.