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In the past three months alone, since I met Shobhit, I got a boyfriend for the first time, witnessed a birth, witnessed a death, and underwent many firsts that led up to my recent move into an apartment with Shobhit. That's a hell of a lot of major stuff. Naturally, this warrants a fourth version of the Matthew McQuilkin Lifetime Timeline. . .


April 30, 1976: date of birth.

October 28, 1981: one month short of their ten-year wedding anniversary, my dad left my mom for the final time.

January 2, 1982: broke right leg trying to jump over a six-inch stool. Was in the hospital 23 days and had a cast on for six weeks after that. The cast went down to my toes on the right leg, down to my knee on the left, with a bar in between my thighs; and up to my waste, with a hole in the front and the back. My mom wrote "BUNS UP!" with a marker across my butt cheeks and I proceeded to shout the word "BUNS!" every chance I got for weeks afterward.

July 27, 1982: my parents' divorce was final.

July 1983: moved out of the house I lived in since birth, in Olympia, WA, to a duplex because my mom had to sell the house.

November 10, 1983: my mom, my brother and I moved into a house with Jim and Jan D., where their two sons and two grandchildren also lived. Jim sexually molested all four of us younger boys (aged 7, 6, 5 and 4 when we first moved there) on a daily basis for the full two years we lived there.

March 8 or 9, 1984: Dad and Sherri were married. I was not there because Jim D. and my brother talked me out of going, even though I really wanted to.

1985: I had my tonsils taken out.

August 20, 1985: my mom moved my brother and me to Spokane, for the first time leaving Temple Baptist Church (where we met Jim and Jan) and the accompanying Christian school. The following fall was my first year in public school, 4th grade.

September 1985: I told my brother that Jim used to wash me and take pictures of me in the bathtub. Christopher told Mom, and Mom told the parents of the other boys who were molested, actually far more severely than I was (physically, anyway; I think Jan was an equal-opportunity abuser when it came to her mind games).

Spring 1986: I was assigned my first Big Brother, who saw me a few times then just stopped coming around.

Summer 1986: First trip to Victoria, B.C., with Dad, Sherri, Angel, Gina, and Christopher.

Late 1986: I was assigned my second and final Big Brother, who saw me once or twice and then just stopped coming around.

December 1986: First trip to Sun City, Arizona, to see Grandma and Granpa Minor and Uncle Dave and Aunt Marianne.

June 10, 1987: Jim D. went on trial for sexually molesting the four children including myself who spent most of those two years stuck in that back bedroom. I narrowly escaped having to testify, which terrified me and caused my grades to plummet at school; Mom and the other kids' mom were there at the trial. Jim received 60 days work release as punishment.

August 1987: I met Danielle, my oldest friend.

1988: Puberty began, and instead of noticing girls, I noticed boys. Keep in mind that this was the height of Spandex fashion and I paid a lot of attention.

February 6, 1989: first "talk-tape" I ever recorded, with Danielle. It was called "Crazy Kids." We were both 12 and I still have that tape, as well as the other 80 talk-tapes I recorded with her and other people throughout the nineties.

July 1989: Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin took the younger half of their 11 grandchildren on their trip to Southern California: Disneyland (where we spent a total of 5 hours, half of which Aunt Raenae had her group, which included me, follow her through souvenir shops); Mideval Times; Universal Studios; Knott's Berry Farm; Six Flags Magic Mountain. We actually drove down there from Washington and stayed in a campground outside of metro LA.

1989: Danielle's family joined my family, Danielle's aunt's family, her dad's friend Gary, and my brother's girlfriend's family in forming our own church. We met at different people's houses for services on Sunday.

September 16, 1989: we got a new black kitten, and my brother named him Batman -- we called him Batty for short.

April 25, 1990: Finished recording my first "Emenemenem" tape, my first attempt at recording a collection of songs. I have recorded a collection of songs every year since.

Summer 1990: my first crush, Chris, my sister's husband's brother. He gave me a friendship bracelet that I never took off for over a year. My mom once said, "You and Chris are not 'going steady.' One of these days you're going to discover girls."

August 15, 1990: the one and only time I ever tried sex, with a 12 year-old boy (the brother of a significant other of a family member, and not the one mentioned in the last entry) -- and failed (we were too young and uneducated to really know what to do). We did less significant sexual things a few other times over that summer.

December 1990: Second trip to Sun City, Arizona, to see Grandma and Granpa Minor and Uncle Dave and Aunt Marianne.

April 2-3, 1991: Second trip to Victoria, with Dad, Sherri, and Christopher.

April 29, 1991: I got Scarletina the day before my 15th birthday, and the rash was by far the worst on the next day.

June 23, 1991: The worst day of my life. I had written a very graphic and fetishistic sexual fantasy involving myself and a family member's husband, and stupidly threw it away on top of the trash before going camping for the weekend. When I returned, my dad revealed he had found it. That day was the only time in my entire life the thought of suicide ever crossed my mind, albeit incredibly briefly (because, really, what's the point in that?).

June 24, 1991: second "heart to heart" about the state of my sexuality, with my stepmom. This was when I confessed to having sexually experimented with someone, saying it happened two years before even though it had actually been the previous summer.

August 19, 1991: third "heart to heart" about the state of my sexuality, with my mom, after coming home from my summer visit in Olympia. Mom and I decided Sherri's suggestion that I get an HIV test was not necessary, and I have to date never had an HIV test.

August 22, 1991: fourth "heart to heart" about the state of my sexuality, with my counselor, whom I had insisted I go see to "cure" my of my sexual affliction. I saw him weekly for six months. By that first visit, I was getting pretty sick of saying the same things over and over again about all these things I was deathly shamed of.

October 31, 1991: My then-two year-old cat, Batty, was shot in the forehead with a pellet gun. The vet just sewed the skin up over the pellet lodged in his skull between his eyes, and it's still there to this day.

1991: the church we had created slowly deteriorated with people sleeping with each other's spouses (the pastor himself participatig in this debauchery) until finally the church ceased to exist -- it's the last church I was ever a member of.

December 5, 1991: McQuilkin family weekend to Leavenworth, WA.

December 27, 1991: after a day of binging on bowls of ice cream, cookies, bowls of ice cream with cookies crunched up in it, glasses of cool-aid, and glasses of eggnog, I vomited. It was the last day I ever vomited, and I have not done so ever since -- a dry spell I take great pride in and a record I intend to keep as long as it is in my power to do so.

February 19, 1992: last visit with my counselor before the final "check-up" to come the following summer.

April 30, 1992: I turned 16.

July 13, 1992, the first story I typed up that proved to be the longest I had ever written -- 43 pages typed. It was called Angels, and I wrote it for my sister, Angel.

July 31, 1992: Grandma McQuilkin and her sister, Auntie Rose, took me on my weekend trip to Seattle, where I fell in love with the city like I never did before. Auntie Rose worked in the Columbia Seafirst Center (now the Bank of America Tower) at the time and managed to get us lunch at the exclusive restaurant on the 75th floor. She also took me up a number of other skyscrapers, to brunch at the Space Needle, on the Underground Tour, and on boat tours through the sound that weekend. I knew by then that there was no other place I wanted to move to once I grew up. Seattle was it.

August 24, 1992: final visit to my counselor, who asked if I was still struggling with my sexuality. I decided I'd had enough counseling so I lied through my teeth and said no. I did not tell him that such things as trying my best to think of women while masturbating really hadn't worked; I just wanted him to think of me as a success case so he wouldn't think I needed to keep seeing him.

October 5, 1992: the first day I ever drove a car, when in Driver's Ed in high school. I did not get a license for another eight years.

May 27, 1993: spent all period in English reading my horror short story "Pong" to the class, the only time ever that I had the undivided attention of all my peers for an hour straight in high school.

July 28, 1993: death of our beloved Siberian Husky/Malamute/Chow mix, Venus, while I was in Olympia. She ran out the front door and into traffic; she was barely a year old and had had puppies only three months before.

January 5, 1994: the pinnacle of the abuse I endured from peers at school: people in Graphic Arts class throwing things at me, one of them a broken piece of pencil that hit me from the side, right into my left eye, barely missing my glasses and piercing the white of my eyeball. I couldn't even open my eye all the way the rest of the day.

April 30, 1994: I turned 18.

May 24, 1994: the first day I discovered I am slightly color deficient, and can easily confuse browns and greens (and some reds), and some shades of red and orange. I had a green shirt and thought it was brown for years.

June 8, 1994: I had my wisdom teeth pulled. When the stitches came out they left deep holes into which cheese would get stuck and it was really irritating.

June 10, 1994: I graduated from high school.

July 10, 1994: Dad and Sherri threw me a graduation party in Olympia. I still have wonderful memories of that.

July 1994: Trip to Southern California to attend my cousin Ben's wedding.

August 21, 1994: first day in Pullman, where I spent the next four years going to school at Washington State University.

January 25, 1995: I met Jennifer Miga.

June 10, 1995: my cousin Jennifer became the first person I ever volunteered to tell the truth to about the state of my sexuality.

June 22, 1995: first day at my first job, at Communications Center Inc. in Spokane, doing phone surveys. After two months I hated it so much I quit two weeks earlier than planned.

September 1995: I began writing a weekly newsletter for the floor of my residence hall, Orton, in Pullman.

August 20, 1995: I met Gabe. He was my roommate when I returned to college as a Sophomore and he came as a Freshman.

January 23, 1996: I officially became an employee of the Daily Evergreen at WSU, as an opinions columnist. I wrote for them for two years.

February 25, 1996: Gabe became the second person I voluntarily told the truth to about the state of my sexuality.

May 1, 1996: Jennifer Miga read the letter I sent to her (after she left WSU five months before and went back home to New York), telling her I had romantic feelings for her.

May 7, 1996: Carl Minor, my paternal grandfather, passed away at the age of 81.

May 11, 1996: my first, and to date my only, memorial service. The poem I wrote for my grandpa, called "Sky," was read aloud by the minister during the service.

July 15, 1996: I met Barbara, at CCI, five days before I quit working there for the second summer for good, and never returned to that shit job again.

July 31, 1996: I pierced both my ears and dyed my blonde hair black. Within a week I was wearing nail polish and eye makeup.

1996: my cat, Batty, by this time eight years old, peaked at 23 lbs.

August 2, 1996: my first concert, at the Gorge in George, Washington -- The Cranberries.

August 10, 1996: I officially came out as bisexual to my mom, my brother, my sister in-law, my dad, and my stepmother, and quickly thereafter to everyone else I knew.

August 11, 1996: I moved into a triplex with Gabe and Suzy, where we lived for the next two years.

December 1996: I wrote an 80-page play in drama form, called Gabe and the Beetles Reunite, as a Christmas gift for Gabe. It was the sequel to the short story I wrote to him the previous year, Gabe in the Infinite Space.

April 30, 1997: I turned 21.

May 25, 1997: Mom and Bill were married.

June 25 1997: I finished my first book, to date my longest (90,000 words or so), a gift for Gabe and Suzy: Gabe & Suzy: A Prequel. I wrote it entirely behind their backs and blindsided them with it when it was neither their birthday nor Christmas.

October 11, 1997: I saw Fleetwood Mac in concert.

December 1997 - January 1998: ten-day trip to Hawaii with my cousin Jennifer, when our grandparents lived there for a year. Jennifer and I only had to pay for airfare.

January 1998: I became a vegetarian.

May 12, 1998: I graduated from college.

June 1998: I received an $80,000 inheritance from my late maternal grandmother, which I managed to run out of within three and a half years.

June 13, 1998: a lifelong dream come true, I moved to Seattle.

September, 1998: I brought Peng home from Seattle Animal Control, where he gave Batty his cold and Batty literally almost died from it. Both cats are very healthy now, though.

December 17, 1998: first day at my first permanent job, part time at Cleaning Consultants, a publishing house that prints only books about cleaning.

February 28 - March 13, 1999: As a belated college graduation gift, Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin drove me down for my first visit to San Francisco. The two-week trip, in which we drove pulling thier RV, included a full three days actually in that city, three days driving down, three days driving back, and a few other places to visit, such as the redwoods.

March 2, 1999: My first freeway automobile accident. Grandpa tried changing lanes and realized too late there was a truck next to us, and when he jerked the truck back the trailer fishtailed to the point that he actually raised his hands and said, "I give up" -- so we jackknifed and slammed into the cement freeway divider. No one was injured, except the truck (and much if its contents), which was declared totaled after we drove it through the rest of our scheduled trip.

May 22, 1999: The day after I quit that awful job at Cleaning Consultants, my cousin Jennifer and I embarked on our five-day trip to Disneyland, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the first and only other time we had been there.

June 1, 1999: my first date with a guy. I never saw him again.

June 4, 1999: my job as a staff writer at the Seattle Gay News fell into my lap, and I met Mike. That day I felt an uncommon type of euphoria, having been only 23 and already having found a writing job. It paid me only $8 an hour and I didn't care. Until . . .

July 1999: finally coming to the realization that no woman had ever once turned me on, I realized how ridiculous it was for me to consider myself bisexual. I have identified as 100% gay ever since.

August 4-5, 1999: First trip to Vancouver, B.C., with Barbara.

September 1999: After three years of black hair, I had the dye stripped in an attempt at getting my hair back to its natural color. The salon appointment took five hours and at one point three people were working on my hair at one time. It damaged my hair so severely that I did not have hair that was truly my natural color and as long as it had been before again until summer 2001.

November 1999: the first braces went on my teeth. The only $5000 I ever spent that I still have something to show for.

January 2000: all four of my bicuspid teeth were pulled, without putting me to sleep, in one dental visit.

February 7, 2000: 12.5 years after first meeting her in Spokane, 5.5 years after I last lived in Spokane, 1.5 years after I moved away from Pullman to live in Seattle, and one day after the 11-year anniversary of the "first-ever" talk-tape I recorded with her, Danielle rode the bus over to move in with me in Seattle. She stayed here in this studio apartment (550 square feet) with me for four months before finding a place of her own in Renton (she now lives in Bothell).

March 2000: all of my braces were finally fitted.

March 3-9, 2000: I visited Gabe and Suzy for a week in Boston.

March 2000: Third trip to Victoria, with Barbara.

April 30, 2000: I attended the Millennium March on Washington (D.C.) with Barbara and Danielle on my 24th birthday.

August 25, 2000: my last day at the Seattle Gay News. By this time fully disgruntled with that job for a variety of reasons, I attempted to organize a strike with six of the ten or so staff members there, and I was the only one who followed through with the threat not to come in to work the next week if certain demands weren't met, since Mike was on vacation that week anyway. Neither Mike nor I returned there after that.

August 29, 2000: I auditioned for the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus. Also when I met Shawna.

September 1, 2000: Finally fed up with CCI, Barbara moved over to Seattle from Spokane. She lived with me for three weeks before she found a place of her own, during which time she got a job at FAO Schwarz to tide her over until the Gay Standard started two months later. She always kept FAO Schwarz as a weekend job, which is why she immediately had full-time employement there when the paper folded in 2001.

October 10, 2000: at the age of 24, I got my driver's license for the first time.

November 10, 2000: first edition of the Seattle Gay Standard, which Mike and I started with the help of his good friend Diane, my good friend Barbara, and two other people hired on.

December 2000: I spent Christmas with Dad and Sherri and Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin in San Antonio.

January 2001: I became Managing Editor of the Gay Standard because Mike could no longer take on the job. Also when Craig and Andrea joined the staff.

February 2001: my first concert performing with the SLGC, called "Winters on the Wing."

March 2001: First SLGC retreat at Seabeck.

August 2001: I spent a week on Cape Cod and in Provincetown with Gabe.

September 2001: I went with Danielle to San Francisco to see Madonna in concert. We flew home three days before 9/11. I did not fly again for three years, not because I was afraid to, but just because I didn't have the money.

November 30, 2001: the final edition of the Seattle Gay Standard, which folded in part because of the plummeting revenue after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but also because of a slew of other things having to do with lack of leadership and organization.

December, 2001: my cat, Batty, by this time 12 years old, was down to 11 lbs, having lost 12 lbs. over the course of the previous two years (he's 14 lbs. now).

December 2001: feeling the need for change to coincide with my newfound unemployment, I dyed my hair again: this time a dark auburn.

February 2002: After only two months with the dark auburn hair, I had it stripped, leaving it a fairly solid red color.

March 2002: I began writing a weekly newsletter for the SLGC, on the same day I started going out with choristers after rehearsal every week, which sparked the beginning of my close friendship with Julie.

May 2002: I became "Chair of the Pride Committee" for the SLGC.

May 21, 2002: I was asked to accept a nomination to run for the Board of the SLGC, and I did accept. I was elected after running for a two-year position unopposed and was officially on the Board by the following month's Board meeting.

August 5, 2002: After eight temp jobs spanning nine months (which included three and a half months of no work at all), I started my third-ever permanent full time job, at PCC Natural Markets. It also happened to be my dad's 47th birthday.

August 13, 2002: Sherri called to tell me her marriage of 18 years to my dad was ending. Dad left the house and then came back to Sherri ten days later, only to leave again ten days after that.

November 24, 2002: In a pivotal point in my personal development, I made an unprecedented move by confessing to Rafe that I had a crush on him.

April 12, 2003: My braces were taken off.

April 30, 2003: On my 27th birthday, the same day Dad came to visit me in Seattle by himself for the first time, Sherri officially filed her divorce papers.

June 7, 2003: Having grown my hair back out again, I cut it relatively short and for the first time ever, had it lightened.

June 25, 2003: For the first time in my life, I passed out -- while at work, for no discernible reason. No reason was found even after I was taken to the mergency room because I hit my head against a metal filing cabinet when I went suddenly unconscious while trying to walk to the kitchen.

August 22, 2003: The scheduled court date for Dad and Sherri's divorce hearing resulted in two no-shows, because Sherri decided not to go through with it after all, and they have been back together since.

November 7, 2003: Peng had surgery to have his kidney removed, ultimately costing me roughly $3000.

February 11, 2004: I decided to leave the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus.

February 2004: After Danielle said she would like me to so I could eventually officiate her and Patrick's wedding, I was ordained as a minister of the Universal Life Church.

February 26, 2004: Stephanie G gave me my dragon treatment.

March 13, 2004: I confessed to another crush.

May 21, 2004: Peng had another surgery, this time to have his penis removed due to stones too large to flush through -- a procedure that cost roughly $1600 but was covered entirely by the vet hospital's Boxer Boehm Memorial Fund.

May 29, 2004: I cut a year's worth of growth off my hair to a length shorter than it had been since 1997, leaving it my natural color.

May 30, 2004: Flying for the first time in nearly three years, I went to Las Vegas to see my second Madonna concert, as well as hang out with Craig for two days.

June 12, 2004: I met Shobhit in an online chat room at gay.com.

June 14, 2004: Shobhit and I had our first date at Cyber Dogs.

June 23, 2004: During my fourth date with Shobhit, after having dinner at my place, I had my first kiss.

July 24, 2004: I lost my virginity.

July 27, 2004: I videotaped the birth of Danielle and Patrick's daughter, Morgan.

July 31-August 1, 2004: I took my second trip to Vancouver, B.C., with Shobhit.

August 25, 2004: Batty died.

August 27, 2004: I moved out of the apartment I had lived in for six years in Seattle, and Shobhit and I both moved into a new place together.

February 12-14, 2005: In our first major trip together ("major" meaning gone for more than one night and necessitating air travel to get there), Shobhit and I went to Las Vegas, my second time there and Shobhit's first.

April 23, 2005: Acting in the role of "minister," I officiated Danielle and Patrick's wedding.

June 11-13, 2005: My fifth trip to San Francisco, this being my first trip to that city with Shobhit.

July 29-31, 2005: I took my third trip to Vancouver, B.C., with Shobhit.

September 20, 2005: I agreed to marry Shobhit. We both agreed to wait for an actual ceremony until it is legal in the State of Washington.

October 22, 2005: For the third time I dyed my hair a dark color -- just not quite as dark as the previous two times, more of a regular brown that looked much more natural. Sort of a "last hurrah" before the planning cutting of my hair short-short six months later.



previous incarnation of the Matthew McQuilkin timeline
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