A Glorious Return to Camp Gaea Retreat Center! (for one day)

And now a post about gratitude and joy.

What it’s all about is the end of Noah’s birthday weekend and how wonderful it was—for me if for no one else.
What Noah wanted for his birthday—because there really isn’t much that he wants and when there is, he gets it himself, T-shirts and such—was to be out in nature. And somehow, I was lucky enough to procure three of the 60 slots that allowed us to spend Sunday at Camp Gaea Retreat Center. For those not in the know, that is the camp where Midwest Men’s Festival is held each year. Camp Gaea is under a soft opening (finally) and what that means I you can’t be there during the week unless you are a volunteer doing specific pre-arranged work, and you can’t rent a cabin at all, and there are only 60 people allowed on property on Saturday and Sunday. Somehow there were exactly three cancellations for Sunday…and we got to

If This Was a Normal Year (Ha! Ha!) Today Would Have Been the Last Day of Midwest Men’s Festival

But this isn’t a “normal” year is it? Nope. Not at all. It is the weirdest and possibly hardest year of my life. And darnit, I want it to be over. On the other hand, if there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s not to wish away my life. Because I honestly don’t know how much life I have left.

I think about some of the best friends I’ve had in my life, Paulle Jung Morvant-Alexander and Joanne Papin, and so many ohters. They were not expecting their last day and–wham–it came. Jo went in for exploratory surgery to find out why she was fainting and before the operation even started,

A Re-Blog from Love Bytes: I Thought I Would Share a Special Moment (or two) With You!

POSTED BY B.G. THOMAS ON JULY 27, 2019 IN LOVEBYTES

Thought I would share the guest post I did for Dani Elle Maas’s amazing MM Romance blog, LoveBytes yesterday. You can read it below or also the original post by Clicking Rich HERE. The advantage of doing the second is you will see a wonderful world of articles, essays, reviews and more. Either place you can see what I have to say about gays being homogenized and heteronormalized AND even BETTER, you can see the video of my drag act.

Not bad, huh?

Check it out, Girlfriends!
Love,
BG “Ben” Thomas

I Thought I Would Share a Special Moment (or two) With You!

Some of you may know that each year I go to a retreat called Midwest Men’s Festival. It’s the center of my year. In many ways the axis my world revolves around. It’s that important to me. It even inspired my novel, Summer Lover.

It’s a little hard how to explain just what Midwest Men’s Festival is. Without writing a novel here, that is, instead of an essay. If you ever saw that episode of Queer As Folk where Michael and Emmet go to Faerie Camp, you can get an idea. But part of what it is a total rejection of the homogenization and heteronormalizing of gay men.

What I mean by that is that it often feels that a big part of why gay men are becoming more and more “accepted” (and I can’t speak for LBTQ) is that we as a culture are becoming more and more

FURRY FRIDAY ~~ Midwest Men’s Festival Style

So last Friday I was at Midwest Men’s Festival with extremely iffy Internet access and so…no Furry Friday. I could have gone ahead and done it a week ahead of time but then I was thought I might not have access at all and then it would have been posted here and no one would have known about it. Therefor to make up for it, I thought I would present some Faeries, some real ones, for you this post. There are some beautiful men here of all types and ages. No poll though. I think they are all perfect and no need for a favorite!

Namaste,
BG “Ben” Thomas

Two Days Until Midwest Men’s Festival

So, it’s just two days until I head to Midwest Men’s Festival, and in fact

Eight Days Until Midwest Men’s Festival

Tomorrow is day two of the six day stretch of enforced overtime, but thanks to Jan Valdez I am going to start counting down to Midwest Men’s Festival instead. It was way too great an idea.

For those of you who have read my book Summer Lover, the “Heartland Queer Men’s Festival” is patterned after the Midwest Men’s Festival that I go to each year. Over ten years now!

I actually get to Camp Gaea two days before Festival starts and observe happily as my fellow Faeries arrive. It’s wonderful.

R helps set up and then head home for a few days. Doesn’t usually arrive until Wednesday or Thursday ad that’s okay. He doesn’t love the nature seclusion as much as I do and I get a little alone time. And one on one time with a few of my very favorite Faeries like Domi and Cim and Greg. I love that too.

I will get up the first day and write write write and hopefully get a lot of writing done! I also hope I finish edits on a certain well anticipated book before I leave, but that depends on how many more overtime days there are left. Send me some good vibes.

And now I will think of my brothers and how much I love them and now I can’t help but smile!

Namasté,
Gentle Ben (my Faerie name)