I’ve extended the book launch campaign to January 21st for four reasons.

 

First, the three-hour Q&A session yesterday was so much fun that we decided we should offer it again next Sunday.

 

Second, most of the people who bought the enhanced/extended book this weekend (and didn’t own the original 2001 edition) hadn’t time to read it before the Q&A session happened, so I want to give them ample time to get through the book to see if they have any remaining questions about De, Carolyn, or our association and friendship.

 

Third, I’ll be interviewed on The Fringe radio show on Saturday January 16th at 7PM Pacific Time/8PM Mountain Time and fans might tune into that and listen for additional questions and answers that they didn’t think to ask themselves, which might spark additional questions.

 

Fourth, January 20th would have been De’s 96th birthday had he lived, so it’s only “fittin’ and proper” that this book launch should extend to the 21st.

 

The Q&A session was both fun and poignant. John Bowersox kept inserting McCoy Moments via YouTube if he could find ones appropriate to the question at hand.  Other fans asked about Carolyn and her background.

 

One German fan IM’d me saying that she felt there just had to be more going on between De and me than got put into the book.  I assured her there was not. When I stepped in to help De at the end of his life he weighed about 90 pounds, he was almost egg-fragile, and he was relegated to the hospital for the duration of his life. The rest of our association, I never met De, or met with De, without Carolyn being right there at his side until he was relegated to a hospital bed.  (The Kelley’s had separate rooms at the hospital.) In fact, as the book shows, the Kelley who called me most often before De needed help was Carolyn. Carolyn  called me, on average, three times a week. We were buds.

 

I’m pretty sure I was called in to help because both of the Kelley’s knew they could trust me and that I would survive the ordeal.  After all, I had just been through something similar with my mom and had done a good job, so I was “tried-and-true” in that way.  (It isn’t easy to step in while a much-loved person is dying.  It takes a toll.  That’s probably why they waited as long as they did–until they couldn’t wait any longer–to ask me to help. I had just lost my mom to brain cancer five months earlier.)

 

Yes, I loved De (Hello! who didn’t love De?) and De loved me, but not in a romantic way; more in the way a dad loves a daughter and a daughter loves a dad. (It’s perhaps telling that when the writers wanted to give McCoy a son, he said, “No, give him a daughter.”)  De and I were kindred spirits in many ways. He was happily married to the love of his life and, as any of you know who have been reading my various blogs, I’m either transgender (but without the surgery to make my outer appearance match my inner brain-based reality) or intersex  (back in the days of my infancy, doctors counseled the parents of intersex/ambiguously-gendered infants to have them altered without keeping records so the parents could raise them as the remaining gender they were assigned during surgery). What all this means is that I wanted to be like De/McCoy–I didn’t want to “do” De or McCoy! So I hope this puts the kibosh on any suspicions that I simply “erred on the side of good judgment and prudence” when it came to whatever may or may not have happened “between the sheets”!

 

Now, having said that, did I consider the healthy, robust, 1960’s-1980’s De Kelley “sexy”?  Indeed! He was easily the most appealing man I ever met because he didn’t seem to know it and he never flaunted it. What was most attractive to me about De was his attitude toward others and his intrinsic integrity. It’s ridiculously easy to be attracted to a seemingly confident, “safe” (non-predatory) gentleman who treats you like a respected, beloved individual.  (This puts me in mind of the McCoy line in TNG where he tells Data about the Enterprise, “You treat her like a lady and she’ll always bring you home.”  What a great line from a supremely geriatric, supremely wise lover!) De always treated me like a lady–so helping “bring him home” at the end of his life when the request for help came in was a no-brainer to me!

 

Too many men–and women, too–fail to understand (or to employ!) how “sexy” it is to have someone treat them like the treasures they are. We all want to be celebrated, not tolerated.  De quietly but completely celebrated his friends and fans by paying close attention to what they said and what they “meant” (between the lines).  He was never rushed or hurried; he took his time engaging and interacting. That was the “sexiest”/most attractive thing about DeForest Kelley (from my unique perspective as a celibate person who doesn’t squander time trying to imagine what happens in bed between two people. I’m just weird that way…).

 

Anyway, I brought this up because more than a handful of Kelley fans have posed the same “confidential” question–and since it’s a tough question to pose to a complete stranger, I figure it’s one contemplated by a lot of other fans who wonder about the same thing!

 

Yes, I loved DeForest Kelley.  Yes, he loved me.

 

But the same could be said about 100% of his fans and friends.

 

Lovin’ De was easy because he loved us.

 

And I choose to believe he still loves us!