Yasmine: I had my assistant Jenn Price interview a friend of mine for the blog. Please welcome her and Dennis to the blog.
Jenn Price: This time I had the great pleasure of getting to know one of Yasmine Galenorn’s good friends Dennis Coyle. He takes part in the AIDS Walk Washington which I would love to take part in one of these years myself. I asked him to share a bit about himself and the walk with us, and he kindly agreed.
How do you know Yasmine?
I met Yasmine in the old Compuserve Cat's Forum a lot of years ago. We were drawn together partially because at the time, I had a cat sequestered in the bedroom while she had an Office Cat in a similar situation. This was 1 Meerclar ago and long before the Otherworld series was published. So it was quite a thrill that one of my online friends became a popular published author. About four years ago, my husband and I vacationed in Seattle and we met Yasmine and Samwise at a Starbuck's and had a nice visit. Starbuck's seemed to be the best choice near our hotel since there were only about 14 of them in a 2 block area. (I kid; there were 3 in 1 block...)
So I've heard you have kitties--Yasmine mentioned Heinlein and 'Caffrey. What kind are they?
They're both rescues, one from a shelter and the other a day away from the same fate. 'Caffrey is a warm brown tabby with beautiful dark markings. Heinlein is a muggle, er moggie, blue and white like a white cat with a gray blanket draped haphazardly over his body. 'Caffrey is petite while Heinlein is, bluntly, a fat fat fattie. Close to 20 pounds...but still a lap cat. One of his nicknames is Joey, ie. Joey Fat One (Joey Fatone). My husband also has two cats that are sisters, Nereide and Urvishi,. Their mom was a Snow Bengal, and Urv inherited the white fur with black tips. Nereide is a brown tabby with spots instead of stripes. I refer to them as The Evil Girls as even after 7 and a half years (more than half of any of their lives), the four just refuse to get along. The Evil Girls tolerate Heinlein because he's their size combined. 'Caffrey spends a lot of time in the bedroom at night, door closed for quality Daddy time. Urv will buck her sister's alphaness and sometimes play nice with Heinlein. My two clearly have two dads. Dave's girls are a little more reticent about the 2nd dad even after all these years, but since I'm the one that feeds them they at least pretend to like me. And I get occasional head bumps. As most homes with multiple cats, it's an interesting dynamic.
How did you find each other?
I had a cat, Fonz (it was the 70s) from the age of 10 to 20. After college, it was 13 years before I lived in an apartment that allowed cats. When I moved into that building, I returned the U-Haul and drove to my local shelter before I even started unpacking. There was a little calico girl that I really wanted, but there was another couple already registered to get her but they only had 1 hour left to come back. They did come back, barely in time. I told the volunteer that I would like to avoid going thru that again, and she told me she wasn't supposed to tell me which cats/kittens weren't already almost spoken for... but she broke the rules for me.
She showed me a couple of kittens that had just come out to the adoption room. 'Caffrey was only about 5 or 6 weeks old, but LOUD, and made it clear she had chosen me. They opened the cage, and I saw this beautiful dark tabby girl. I reached to pick her up, and she jumped on me and climbed onto my shoulders. I've been her mama for over 13 years now. That apartment was listed with the shelter as only allowing 1 cat per unit, but I knew many people had 2 so I found Heinlein about a week later from a Yahoo ad. The day before I drove 30 miles to get him, I saw an ad at PetSmart that looked just like Heinlein and was shocked to see one of the boys looked like that ad. There was no question he was going home with me. He was about 5 months old but still cried all the way to his Only Home so rode inside my jacket. He and 'Caffrey were instant friends and still cuddle together frequently.
Do you have any cute stories to share?
13+ years with cats? Of course I do. Too many, but I sent you a pic that sums up one of my favorites.
How did you meet your husband?
I met my husband quite by accident, but see the next question for how it happened. The short version is “at a bar”. But it's a lot more involved than that.
How did you get started in activism?
I never set out to be an activist. I was in the closet until shortly after my 34th birthday. I grew up in a small town in western Maryland, attended Catholic schools for 12 years, and was taught from a young age that being gay wasn't normal. It took me a long, long time to get past my early experiences even though I've lived most of my adult life in the Washington, DC suburbs.
In finished grad school in 1993, spent four years in Rockville, MD, then changed jobs and moved back to Arlington, VA (where I had lived for a few years after college). That's when I finally starting coming out to friends. Since I had changed jobs after nearly 5 years, I was also no longer hiding personal facts at work. I wasn't out to my family, other than 1 sister who also lives in Arlington. I was enjoying being out, dating, making new friends, and basically going thru what most teenagers go thru when I was in my 30s. I didn't have a serious relationship the first few months because I quickly learned that most out guys I met didn't have the patience to deal with a newly out guy, so I just had fun.
Then that October, Matthew Shepard was savagely beaten. I remember reading online articles about it all weekend and when he died a few days later, I was devastated. I realized that being out had to be more than just going out and having fun. I wanted to be more involved and luckily, living in the DC Metro area, I had easy access to gay press. The day after Matthew died, I saw in article in the Washington Blade about a group called the Arlington Gay & Lesbian Alliance. I found their web site, mailed a check to join, and waited for my first newsletter. I wasn't able to go to the next monthly meeting, but the following month AGLA was hosting a happy hour to welcome new members and the location was only 3 blocks from my office. I was nervous, but I went. I had no idea how life changing that happy hour would be. It was November 20. We still celebrate that day as our anniversary even though we got legally married in California 3 years ago in June.
My now husband, Dave, was the AGLA president that year and we met at that event. He asked what I did for a living, and I spent the next decade+ doing AGLA's web site, election web sites for many progressive local Democrats, and a few years for Virginia's branch of Stonewall Democrats. We also started dating the next day and that was over 12 years ago. We got married just a few months before our 10th anniversary.
While most of my activism has been thru pro bono web design, the first year we dated Dave also introduced me to the DC AIDS Ride, a roughly 370 mile bike ride over 4 days. I thought he was out of his mind, but he convinced me to try and I rode that ride for three years plus a longer ride in Alaska for AIDS vaccine research. I raised over $10,000 for the 3 DC rides and another $4K in Alaska.
What is the AIDS Walk Washington?
The DC AIDS Ride doesn't happen anymore, but AIDS Walk Washington is celebrating its 25th year in 2011. And it's not the oldest AIDS Walk in the country. The length of the walks vary, but in DC it's a 5K walk with an optional run. AIDS Walk Washington is produced by, and benefits, Whitman-Walker Health, a local non-profit that provides health services for those with limited resources or are just more comfortable with a provider with a long history with the local LGBT community.
Whitman-Walker was originally founded before the AIDS crisis as a health clinic for gay men but has evolved over nearly 40 years to be a full service health provider for the community. While many of the clients and staff are gay, it's not solely focused on the gay community. I'll quote from their web site (
www.whitman-walker.org) “Our mission is to be the highest quality, culturally competent community health center serving greater Washington’s diverse urban community, including individuals who face barriers to accessing care, and with a special expertise in LGBT and HIV care.”
AIDS Walk Washington is one of Whitman-Walker's primary revenue sources after grants. The money raised by the walk is critical to the annual budget. The goal this year is to reach $1 million but that hasn't happened in over a decade as fund raising for AIDS non-profits has slipped in recent years.
And for full disclosure, I always mention one particular fact about AIDS Walk Washington when I'm doing fund raising. My husband is the director of the walk and Deputy director of Community Relations at Whitman-Walker Health. So I do the walk for many reasons; for my own personal satisfaction, for the good of the community, and to support my husband.
Dave and I would like to thank Yasmine for asking me to be a guest on her blog. When we met online many years ago, I'm guessing neither Yaza or I ever imagined anything like this would happen.
If you would like to make a donation to Dennis for AIDS Walk Washington you can visit his donation page. I would like to thank Dennis and Dave for taking the time to answer my questions, and allowing us to get to know him and what he does.
