It was one of those rare moments that happen from time to time in life that is like a snapshot the brain takes –whether you really want to get the film developed or not- that you’ll never, ever forget: One minute we were enjoying a nice breakfast of waffles and coffee and discussing our love/hate of the writing process (and how one really doesn’t have a choice in what one commits to the empty screen) and in the next Jordan was confessing to me that he knew he was gay since the sixth grade.

“Uhm…excuse me? I asked. Maybe I had (surely!) misunderstood. Quickly I made a mental inventory of all the words that rhymed with or could be confused with the word ‘gay.’ Hay, day, ray, say, pay, play, way, jay, okay, etcetera but none of these words made any sense in the context of Jordan’s statement that he knew he had ‘been that way’ since sixth grade.

“You heard me, I didn’t stutter” Jordan answered calmly after taking a relaxed sip of his coffee.

“Well…it’s just that you…you blurted that out so quickly. I…”

“Quickly?” he interrupted. “It’s taken me thirteen years to ‘blurt that out’ as you put it” he said, looking at me over the rim of his coffee cup with incredulity.

“I’m sorry” I told him. “I’m just a… a little blown away by this revelation” I said with a sudden wince at my unintentional pun. And Jordan, to his credit, just smiled and let it go.