(Originally Published on The Huffington Post – 1/10/2012)

I spent my 20s in complete solitude. Even when I was in relationship or around friends, I was impossible to reach and might as well have been by myself. It was a decade spent mostly alone, and I think there were many times when I felt like this was just how life was going to play out. I watched as my little brother married his high-school sweetheart, and in the 10 years since, I’ve had the great pleasure of holding their babies as they joined us in the world. Loving these beautiful creatures has in many ways made my own as-of-yet-unrealized dream of building a family an easier pill to swallow — but I have always hoped that some great love would make its way to me, as well.

In October 2010, after spending the better part of two years in single-man lockdown mode recovering from a long-winded, ugly breakup, I went to celebrate my 31st birthday with my dear friend at a local Portland patisserie. We sat and chatted about life for a while, and then I noticed this man walk through the door and sit at a table just to the right of the dessert counter. He was wearing a tight, white, v-neck t-shirt, and I found myself unable to stop staring at him. It may have been his big arms, his dark chest hair, his thick-framed Dita glasses, his pretty face — I’m not sure — but something clicked in that moment.

At one point my friend stepped out to take a call, and I took that as my cue to undress him with my mind and get down to fantasy business. (I’m not a sex maniac, but I had sworn off men and had been celibate for over a year, and my fantasy life had become both really involved and easily accessible during that time). So I imagined us getting freaky on the dessert counter until my friend’s return jolted me back to my sad, clothed, birthday reality. From across the room, I kept hearing my pretend boyfriend laughing this enormous, joyful, shameless laugh with his friend, and I tried not to stare. As we were leaving, I pointed out my exotic find to my friend and said, “I gotta get me one like that,” which, in retrospect, is a bit crass and actually isn’t all that romantic-sounding, but I figure the story’s no good if I don’t just tell it like it happened, and that’s how it happened. It may not have been poetry, but it came from a very real place.

Over the next two months I thought about this mystery man a lot, which was not a common thing for me to do when it came to random people from coffee shops whom I had never spoken to. Often, the thoughts were naked ones, but sometimes they were not. At times I was awake when he was there; other times he would appear in my dreams. What had happened to me there amongst the candy and cakes? I couldn’t figure out if I had been possessed or if I was just really horny from swearing off sex. Maybe I just needed to get manhandled on a dessert counter somewhere. Either way, I hoped I would run into him again and promised myself that I would speak to him if I did.

One afternoon in early December I looked up from my desk at Portland’s Q Center, and there he was, standing in the door of my office, picking up promotional materials for an event he was holding there. He told me his name. I introduced myself but could not stop looking down at my feet. We shook hands. His were soft but strong — like they were in my dream. I’m sure I turned all sorts of red in the face, and I remember being kind of frozen there for a minute. I came off as rude and uninterested, and he went to talk with my colleague across the hall. Once again, I found myself compelled to stare at him, completely drawn in by his presence, his look, his chemicals, but I was somehow rendered unable to speak or be friendly.

When he left I probed my colleagues for details about who this most recent star of my rich fantasy life actually was in the real world. After hearing only good reviews from the handful of people I asked, I decided to attend the event he was hosting. I was determined to push through the shyness and try talking to him again when it was over, and I would try even harder not to come off like a total dick this time. Out of nowhere, at the end of the event, he came up to me and asked if I’d like to grab a coffee with him sometime. (I later found out that my colleague had let him in on my having expressed interest, so the miracle-love-story factor here is a little diminished, but it was a magical moment nonetheless.) I said yes and had him call my phone so that I could save his number.

As he was walking away, I noticed that it had not saved, and I said, “Wait! It didn’t work!” He turned and walked back over to me, still with those sweet eyes, still with that handsome face, and in a fleeting moment of sheer bravery, I let out the words, “How am I supposed to get you into my life if I don’t have your phone number?” My boldness made him smile. I entered the number again manually, saved it, and left the event feeling over the moon. To my surprise, he called me the next day to go to dinner instead of coffee, which we did the following evening. It was one of those nights where everything was easy and real. We talked about our lives, our families, our struggles, our deepest regrets, our hopes, our true selves; it was perfect. He gave me the most passionate kiss as he dropped me off that night, and we have been together ever since.

I’m not sure if our meeting was destiny or chance, as I am not sure I believe in either of those things, but I think I may have experienced what others for centuries have been referring to as “love at first sight” that day in the patisserie. I’m pretty sure I don’t believe in that, but it was like the minute I laid eyes on this man, I just knew he was going to change my life forever — and he has. I like to think that all those dreams and imagined escapades involving him in the months prior to our meeting were ways in which the universe was preparing me for the very real arrival of love and intimacy in my life. I might not have recognized either of them had I not already been turned on and tuned in on some level, and both might have frightened me had I not been practicing a bit on my own in advance of their arrival. It was some sort of cosmic conditioning process, and it left me brave and open enough for this man to occupy a space in my heart that no other man had prior.

Maybe the moral of this in-progress love story is that even the coldest hand can be warmed. I am living proof of this. I wake up every morning to a face on the pillow next to me that I hope I am lucky enough to get to roll over and look at for 100 more years. Something has come alive in me that was asleep before, and I will share that awakening with him forever, however our story builds out from here.

I believe that all of us deserve love and are fully capable of loving, no matter what our experience in and around relationships has been in the past. I continue to work on staying bold and listening to my dreams and fantasies when they are speaking to me. I am convinced that therein lies the roadmap to my bliss. My guess is that your bliss is trying to tell you something too, so pay attention. You never know when that patisserie door will open.

At the end of 2010 I created The Q Center Concert Series in an effort to showcase LGBT musicians, dancers, comedians, actors, filmmakers and performance artists from around the world and locally at Portland’s LGBT community center. I am pleased to report that, due to the mega success of this 1st year of the program, we will be back in 2012 for another round!

This year so far I have featured Matt Alber, John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole, Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Shortbus), Taylor Mac, Tom Goss, Amber Martin, Shannon Grady, Sook-Yin Lee (Hedwig & The Angry Inch), Paul Dawson & PJ Deboy (Shortbus), Jenna Riot, Kaia Wilson (Team Dresch), Adventures! with Might, Leviticus Appleton, DJ Beyondadoubt, DJ Lunchlady, Swagger, Rose City Sirens, Drag Mansion, DJ Bruce LaBruiser, ChiChi & Chonga, Fannie Mae Darling, Belinda Carroll, Hugo Orozco (Rock & Roll Camp for Girls) and many more. Thank you to everyone who performed, attended or helped me pull these shows and events off! Without all of you none of this would have been possible.

You have one last chance to catch some killer queer acts before the 2011 Q Center Concert Series takes a bow! The 5th Annual Queer Quistmas Variety Show is happening on Saturday, December 17th at Q Center. Tickets are on sale now. CLICK HERE to get yours! This year’s raunchy holiday shitshow promises to be the filthiest yet! Come get down and dirty with hosts Splendora Gabor (Lee Kyle from “Sissyboy”) and Fannie Mae Darling while we welcome another group of incredible performers to the stage: Austin Tautious, Jam N Toast, Queertet, Nico Bella, Anthony Hudson, Angel Hanson, The Julian-ettes, Eric Sellers, Korin Schneider, Daniel Thompson, Jamie Treadwell, tons of surprise guests and the incomparable Glenn Goodfellow on piano all night!!!

This is the only holiday party that has ever mattered, and it’s for a good cause! See you there…and yes. That’s me in a onesie on the poster.

Happy holidaze, everyone!

LL

Click the poster for more details:

As many of you probably already have heard, Seattle’s evangelical Mars Hill church has just set up shop in SE Portland. The story broke via the Portland Mercury last week and ignited a controversy which has been covered in the media (both local and national) ever since.

When anything notable that’s LGBT-related happens in this town I generally expect to get calls from newsrooms wanting official statements from Q Center about said goings-on. That’s part of our role as an organization, actually; to speak out and offer up a voice from the queer community. As Q Center‘s Public Relations Manager, this time-sensitive-race-to-press stuff lands on my desk – generally all at once and without warning. This was certainly the case this past week. At 4pm Thursday Fox News descended upon my office with TV cameras. The Oregonian and Just Out had both interviewed me about the church just before they arrived as well.

Here’s where this whole thing gets tricky:

I know that ultimately what comes out of my mouth in these initial unplanned moments matters much more than any of the well thought out words I will think to say in the days following…so I try my best to speak from the heart and stay focused on the issue at hand instead of my past experience or perceptions. I’m not gonna lie, though- This particular issue is hard to stay objective about…impossible, maybe…so I decided not to.

Instead of fighting to stay removed I dove headfirst into my personal experience. I thought about how different my relationship with my family, the church and the world is these days compared to when I was coming out as a teenager and I thought about how it was that we got from there to here. In the years since coming out I have been able to change the hearts and minds of the people in my life. The once conservative views alive in my family are no longer anywhere to be found. We live in a profoundly free, new world together; a world full of love and celebration of our differences. It’s really quite beautiful. Had you told me this would be the case with my loved ones when I was 14 and miserable I would have laughed in your face at the impossibility of it all.

When I think about how this change in our lives came to be there are many variables. The common factor is me, however. In getting to know me, in seeing what it means to be a gay person through my life, my parents and these anti-gay people around them have changed their minds. It has taken years…but eventually is so much better than never. There are educational opportunities in front of my face all the time. Sometimes I am the teacher, but I am ALWAYS the student. When I heard Mars Hill Pastor Tim Smith speak in this video (click HERE to watch) I knew this was one of those times. I invited them to come take a tour of Q Center and chat and they took me up on the offer.

This afternoon MH Pastor Tim Smith arrived at Q Center with his colleague and we (along with Barb and Paul) spent nearly 2 hours together, chatting first about our similarities to find common ground and then about our differences and what that means for the local LGBT community here in Portland now that they have arrived. It was a very respectful, civil afternoon. We spoke about what all we do at Q Center, about youth suicide, bullying, queer families, the local political landscape and the state of the LGBT community here in Portland and worldwide. They spoke, we listened. We spoke, they listened. We had “ah-ha!” moments, they had “ah-ha!” moments. It was really that simple. No screaming. No fighting. Just talking. I believe we all left today’s meeting with a better understanding of one another’s perspective and with a resolve to take this dialogue to the next level.

In discussing what that would look like initially, we have decided to gather a dozen people – 6 from the LGBT community and 6 from the Mars Hill/Evangelical Christian community – to meet and dive deeper into these discussions over the course of a period of time yet to be determined. This will be an opportunity for the hard questions to be asked, answered, cried about, talked over, etc in a safe space, with the end goal being that both sides walk away with a better understanding of the other. There is so much fear on both sides of this particular coin…and we often are most afraid of the unknown. My hope is that we can replace the fear with knowledge, swap out the misinformation with education. I have seen this happen in my immediate family and believe wholeheartedly that it can happen in the larger human family as well. We are all just people, after all.

Today was a victory for courage, compassion and kindness; for being heard and for listening to. I’ll keep you all posted as this develops. I have high hopes that something really good comes out of this bridge we started building today.

In the end, love wins. Always. You’ll see.

xo,

Logan

David Byrne included me and my “Quickly As We Pass” video in his notorious “Pop Making Sense” column this week in Chicago’s Windy City Times newspaper! You can currently pick it up anywhere periodicals are distributed in Chicago or just keep reading below.

From Windy City Times, Chicago: (7/27/2011)

“Another video to keep an eye out for is Logan Lynn’s ‘Quickly As We Pass.’ Imagine forward-thinking Imogen Heap mentoring a DIY artist with the hipster sound stemming from Brooklyn. The end product would be ‘Quickly As We Pass‘. The track’s video is very cleverly done with stills looking like cutouts then being turned into 3-D objects, as they are filmed from different angles. Also, there is footage of neighborhoods in the Windy City with many of the spots being instantly recognizable. Not only is the video well crafted, but the song itself is very catchy. Lynn is based in Chicago and is openly gay. ‘Quickly As We Pass‘ can be found on the album ‘I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday‘.

Nice huh? I’m actually based in Portland but I love that Chicago wants to claim me! So cute!!! To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

The Boy In Static remix of my song “Alone Together” (from my new record “Blood In The Water” available on iTunes HERE) was used in Trent Finlay‘s promotional video for the Q Center, Basic Rights Oregon, Cascade AIDS Project & Pride NW “Hands Across Hawthorne” anti-gay bashing event.

Read what The Advocate had to say about the event itself HERE, then watch the video below.

Together we can stop the violence. To get involved with LGBT community safety in Portland, CLICK HERE. To find the LGBT community center closest to you, CLICK HERE.

My new video “Quickly As We Pass” is featured on AfterElton.com today! Check it out HERE or keep reading below!

From AfterElton.com: (6/23/2011)

“Logan Lynn channels the 80′s with “Quickly As We Pass”: Out artist Logan Lynn has been producing music for over a decade, but I confess to somehow having missed him until now. But as a huge fan of 80s music, I’m quite pleased to have made his acquaintance through his new video “Quickly As We Pass” which reminds me of what was best about early 80s music. This song wouldn’t have been out of place in the dance clubs being played along side the best bands of the 80s, including New Order, OMD and Eurythmics. But take a listen yourself and see what you think!”

I was interviewed for The Accidental Bear about music, activism and a bunch of other stuff this week. You can check it out on their site HERE (complete with photos of me and my boyfriend) or just keep reading below for the full transcript.

From The Accidental Bear: (6/2/2011)

While hiking through a creek the other day I lifted up a rock and found a gem. Ok, no that’s a story, I just really enjoy analogies. Nonetheless, the gem that was brought to my attention is singer-song-writer-ginger-beard-acitivist Logan Lynn. When I found him, it just happens, he is on a little hiatus, charging up for whatever the future holds.

LL: On Logo again here shortly. My new video is premiering sometime later this month. The rest is going to unfold however it decides to unfold. I have a day job, dog and boyfriend. Life is simple and good. I’ve gone inward for the time being.

My new video “Quickly As We Pass” premiers in the UK this week and GT Magazine (the UK’s largest glossy GLBT Magazine) had some lovely stuff to say about me (and the video) today!

To redirect to their site to watch the video, click the current issue cover below or scroll just below that for the complete transcript…

From GT Magazine (3/21/2011):

“Logan Lynn’s music rides a bright green fixie bike through the same non-prescription specs and skinny jeans hipster soundscape as the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and Owl City; Except he’s not as whinily self-deprecating as Death Cab, and not as much of a twat as that guy from Owl City. Relaxed synths and deliciously soothing vocals bring to mind perhaps a laid back bar in Amsterdam that’s too cool to have a name but has an artsy clientele who wear their hair in dreadlocks and pretend they’re too poor for the designer clothes on their backs.

And with MTV and Logo already interested it’s set to be a big ‘un, so braid you hair, take a cycle ride to your nearest too-cool-for-school bar, sit back with your organic cocktail, and enjoy.”

You may have heard about Paul V’s “Born This Way” blog in recent days as it has been featured on TV and all over the place in the media. My short essay was one of the 1st included when the site when live a couple months ago. You can check out the post HERE. They ended up using only one of the two photos talked about in the essay so I have included the other one as the main header image of this post. Good, gay times.

Here’s hoping we can all learn to love ourselves and be kind to one another. Now…spend a few hours getting to know this fantastic blog. It’s pretty special.

Love you all,

Logan

My new record “I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday” was produced by Bryan Cecil and self-released as a fundraiser for Q Center on Tuesday, August 31st. You can preview and purchase the record on iTunes by clicking HERE or on the album cover below. 100% of the proceeds from sales go to benefit Portland’s Q Center.