In 1992, Dolly Parton did a movie that could very well have been the end of her career (I liked it, though; go figure). It was called Straight Talk, and she played a small-town girl who walked out on her husband and accidentally walked into a radio studio, where she found herself doing a daily call-in show and giving advice to listeners. The catch: she had to masquerade as a doctor.

One of the main reasons Parton agreed to do the movie, I'm sure, was that she got to write and sing all the songs for it. Any moviegoer knows that an original soundtrack is Foreshadowing's best friend, and wouldn't you know it, just as Dolly she hit the chorus on "Livin' a Lie," all "I sacrificed my blah blah, my fishcakes, and my pride, livin' a lie," her world crumbled when she saw how lying about herself caused unintentional and avoidable pain.

Anyway, I'm graduating from high school this month. Thirteen years of public education come down to a single moment during which a paper is exchanged and a tassel is moved to the other side of a mortarboard. The meaninglessness of the graduation ceremony and the entire public education experience are topics for another column, however.

The thing that bothers me about my impending graduation is that it serves as another reminder of a bubble I have to burst. I have some news to deliver to my parents, but they're not necessarily going to want to hear it.

They are very excited about my upcoming graduation. They've invited tons of people. They see this as the beginning of a big future.

I'm going to college in the fall. I'll study business and marketing. I'll earn a degree and go on to graduate school. I'll make a lot of money and have a nice car and somewhere along the line I'll meet a nice girl and we'll have some adorable kids and we'll live in a nice house in a conservative town and we'll go to church every Sunday and things will be just peachy. Grandma and Grandpa, as I'm sure they're anxious to be called, will visit often, spoiling the children with all the junk their own parents were too cheap to buy them.

Except, not so much.

Keep in mind that I don't know what's going to happen, but I can ballpark my future. I'm going to college in the fall. I'll make it to class in between parties and dates. I'll earn a degree in business, yes, with a minor in communications. I'll go to a real college for graduate school, preferably somewhere cool. I have a thing for big cities that way. So I guess it's mostly the same thing my parents were expecting, except for the part about the girl.

I'll make a lot of money and have a nice car and somewhere along the line I'll meet a nice guy. I'm not particularly fond of children, but the right guy might convince me that we should adopt. I can tell you with certainty that I have no desire to live in a nice, conservative town. I want to live where the boys are.

I have no problem telling people this, either. Well, most people. I'm not ashamed to be gay. I don't buy in to the societal stigmas surrounding homosexuality. I am the way I am and nothing anyone says or does will change that.

My problem, however, lies in the fact that until I can tell my parents the truth about my sexuality, I'm living that straight life they've dreamed up for me. And we can't have that.

One of my favorite scenes from Queer as Folk (don't tell me you're surprised) is from season one, when Justin's father threatens to send him away to military school to make him un-gay. Justin sums up parental coming-out philosophy. "If you want to hit me, go ahead. But whatever you do, it's not going to matter, because I'll still be your queer son."

In the meantime, it's 2003. I'm at the end of my high school career. I'm a gay boi headed off for fun and excitement in college next year. The catch: my family doesn't know I'm gay. I suppose this is the part where I break into song: "I sacrificed my blah blah, my fishcakes, and my pride, livin' a lie." But I can't carry a tune (ask anyone), and I don't think just mouthing the words is going to work much longer. Wish me luck.