Lunches with my parents.

Since my parents are eager to see me and talk to me since I went to London by myself and returned to them safely, I had lunch with my mother yesterday. And I'm having lunch with my father today, but I tend to do that once a week or so anyway.

Lunches with my father tend to be really interesting. We go to the same restaurant, order the same food and have a completely wacky conversation.

A couple weeks ago, my dad and I were talking about going to college in Ohio in 1969 and 1970. He spoke to me about how other campuses reacted - and how his campus reacted - to the Kent State uprising.

The Bowling Green campus was apparently the only one that didn't erupt in protests after Kent State, but my father told me about how he and my mother were driving around campus the day after it and saw that National Guard troops had been placed on call there, in case anything happened.

It was scary, they've both told me. Which doesn't say much.

But when my father tells these stories, his mind wanders, and he starts getting this looks of full recognition on his face. So real fear registers on his face. Real laughs occur to him when he thinks about an old friend who got drafted or how his friends from the dorms used to camp out in their apartment living room, falling asleep in front of the TV.

At lunch, I asked my father once how he proposed to my mother. He said he didn't remember ... but that he remembered asking my grandfather's permission and being scared about that.

My father, though, told me that he did remember his draft number.

258.

Watching the draft on TV, he said he knew that he'd be dead if his number had been picked. He imagined himself as a soldier and knew that it wouldn't work. He had an attitude problem. He didn't like conflict. He was bad at taking someone else's orders. And he thought that firing a gun would be amusing. He imagined himself dead. He was 21.

Luckily, his draft number was high. He watched the draft with a friend of his, and, when it became clear that his friend was headed over and he wasn't, the two of them left my mother in the apartment and went to a bar to drink.

Remember yourself in college. Think about your parents doing the same things in the same way. It's weird.

That's why I have lunch with my dad. Because he reminds me of myself. And I remind him of himself.

Lunch with my mom is usually different. There's generally an occasion involved.

Yesterday, my mom wanted the gift that I bought her at a duty-free Harrod's store in the London airport.

It was a Paddington Bear, from the book she used to read me when I was about 3. The bear that she used to dress me up like. The book that she looks for when she comes to my bookstore now.

She LOVED the bear. When she saw it, she cooed. Then, she told me that she'd put it in her office so that she wouldn't have to "share" it with either of my stepbrother's children.

For lunch, we went to Blimpie because I didn't really have much time. Since I go there all the time, my mom thought it was funny that the staff knew who I was and what I wanted to eat without asking me. And then they gave me a free, broken cookie.

For some reason, we continued talking about toys at lunch. I think it had to do with the fact that my cousin won't buy her daughters any Barbie dolls because it subjects them to confining ideas of beauty and sex.

"Well, I was pretty good about that, I think," my mother said to me.

"Why?" I asked her. "Because of my She-Ra dolls?"

When I was in the fourth grade, my mother bought me She-Ra dolls and her Crystal Palace playset because "She-Ra: Princess of Power" was my favorite show on TV.

Apparently, my stepfather - who doesn't know that his now-married, redneck Baptist son initiated my first three dozen or so sexual experiences - told my mother last week that it was no wonder I was gay since she let me play with dolls.

"They were action figures," she said.

I think that was our stance at the time, too. They're just action figures with frilly outfits and long, flowing hair, my mother and I said back in 1986 - aware of our own senses of complete denial.

My stepfather apparently said to her last week, "You shouldn't have let him have them. You should've just told him that they were for girls."

Whatever. She-Ra knew how to swordfight and beat up ugly, evil creatures like Hordak - even though she rode a beautiful, white unicorn. She-Ra RULED.

Even though I laughed at her story yesterday, I feel bad for my mom, having to hold such a stupid conversation with someone who doesn't understand the nature of human sexuality in general or my sexuality specifically.

I remember how I explained it to her once, when she asked me what "caused" this gay thing. Is it genetics? Is it conditioning? Is it a mixture?

"I don't know, and I don't think that's the right question to ask," I said to her when I was 19. "All I know is that, for whatever reason, I was given this to deal with. And not everyone has it. So either I can choose to behave honestly about it - acknowledging it - or I can deny it and lie to myself. I don't want to lie about it."

So, anyway, yeah. Lunches with my parents are good.