Lamar Ariel
Ready to Male is autobiographical fiction written in the form of letters. The work infuses elements of short-story and memoir writing styles to provide a snapshot of Lamar Ariel's ongoing journey to creatively examine rather than dismiss his personal thoughts. Using humor, wordplay, poetry, and a healthy dose of sarcasm—each chapter of Ready to Male contains exaggerated interpretations of real life experiences. The work provides an intimate vessel for eaves-dropping on one man's attempt to make sense of his emotions in the rapidly changing world around him.
This is Lamar Ariel's first series of uncensored responses to the age-old question:
What's on your mind? At twenty-something years old, Lamar Ariel is not straight, not white, not uneducated, and—contrary to popular opinion—not unusual. He currently lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan with his many beloved personalities.
Author’s Note
About a year ago, it seemed as though not one of the many thoughts bicycling through the maze in my brain ever reached a path that would allow them to exit. So one day, during one of my routine heart-to-heart conversations with myself, I said, “Care Bear (because you can address yourself however you might like), you have to find a way to stop all this traffic racing in your head.”
A few days later, I was in the process of clearing off my desk when I uncovered an old cover letter. It totally made me laugh as I remembered the amount of time I had spent crafting 500 words to make the “Lizard of Oz,” hiding behind an e-mail address, pick the idea of me versus someone else. After a few giggles and grunts of reflection, I decided to take a five-minute break from the two-minutes of cleaning I had just begun. During my downtime, I opened the cover letter file on my computer and tweaked the contents of the letter as if it were being written to a potential boyfriend. The new cover letter was addressed to Dear Mr. Presumed Guilty. And with my last pinky-fingered click of the enter key, I immediately e-mailed the letter to all of my friends.
After clicking “send,” I received a phone call from a friend who was too busy laughing, on his side of the invisible line, to say “Hello.” After he read aloud a few of the lines that “gagged” him the most, he made me promise to distribute a copy of that letter on all of my first dates. As we ended the conversation, he said, “Chile, they’re not ready!” Laughing, I responded, “Neither am I!” When I hung up the phone, I replayed our conversation in my head and thought about the word ready. I wondered why I was excited to send that letter to my friends but clearly lacked the courage to deliver it to the person(s) for which it was actually intended.
Towards the end of the next week I wrote another letter that was more serious entitled Dear How’s Work? This time, after e-mailing it to my friends, that same friend responded with an e-mail that read: “Lamar, this almost made me cry. You should most definitely male it to him.” As simple as it was, his typo combined with my fascination with the word ready provided the basis for the name Ready to Male to be used as the title for the collection of letters you are about to read.
Ready to Male contains six chapters. Chapter One, “Is Easy Because You’re Beautiful,” contains letters written to and about the individuals who have taught and continue to teach me how to love. Chapter Two, “Find Him Keep Him, Lose Him Weep Him,” consists of letters that uniquely document my emotions—depression, anger, loneliness, denial, and resolution—following the end of a tumultuous relationship. Chapter Three, “Creature of Bad Habits,” describes the five types of men I have repeatedly dated during my ever-interesting existence as a single, gay man in New York City. Chapter Four, “Haughty Traveler,” details some of my reflections and frustrations while using NYC’s transit system. Chapter Five, “Very Perceptive, Practically Psychic,” is a mix of social commentary and fantasy where I make certain predictions about my future and the future of America. And the last, Chapter Six, “Is It Me Or Is It New?” highlights some of my thoughts with regards to wanting, needing, and preparing for change.
As I sit and anxiously prepare to publish this first round of letters, I‘d love to be able to tell you that my mind-traffic had finally slowed down, but that’s just not the case. My thoughts—rebels that they are—pooled their coins together to buy a few motorcycles. And now, as they are able to drive faster and farther, I’ve constructed a few exit ramps in my maze that lead directly to an empty page. Enjoy!
