Screwing Off

Some mornings, it’s all I can do to get going.  I do, of course, because that’s what I do.  Get going.  But, like this morning, and despite the fact Gina had her 60 pounds and two front paws firmly embedded in my chest as she let me know in her typical subtle fashion that it was time to go out, and it being the first morning fully free and unfettered to do whatever I want, I found that I couldn’t even muster the energy to bend over to pick up the dog bowls and fill them.  Finally, the stamping of eight furry feet made me anyway.  The things I have to do for the ones I love.

I’ve decided that I could, with the proper training, piss away endless days by just screwing off.  I think this is a good sign. 

On my list for this last few days of time off I hope to:

1.                   Figure out the freakin’ iPod at last.  I’ve done things with it before and somehow it has music on it, but I don’t have a clue how it happened.  I’ve been playing the same music over and over and over again until I can’t take it anymore.  I can’t replicate it, despite the fact trained monkeys can even figure it out. 

2.                   Update my resume.  I’m considering a career as a trained monkey, but I don’t think they’d hire me until I figure this whole iPod thing out.

3.                   Reflect upon my year.  That won’t be too difficult because those challenges I met are for the most part, still hanging around, little bastards.  I think I will do this with a bottle of 20-year old Port. 

4.                   Clean Em’s bedroom before she gets back.  That should eat a full chunk of an entire day – I dared open the door and was nearly sucked into the vortex, despite the fact she swore that her room was clean before she left.  This isn’t exactly screwing off, but it’s going to allow me to sleep tonight.

5.                   Get reacquainted with HMW.

6.                   Read the three Vanity Fairs I have stacked in various bathrooms.  I just haven’t felt the same about the magazine since Christopher Hitchens became such a pompous ass.  Oh, wait, he always was a pompous ass, I just don’t tolerate it as well as I once did.  So, it must be because Dominick (“While I was dining at Le Circque with Queen Whosit and Archduke Pumperwhatsit last week, we were discussing the Saffron murder…”) Dunne, who isn’t writing regularly for them anymore.

7.                   Go talk to my new garbage can and tell it how much I appreciate it joining my household.

Me, My Mattress & I

I spent a long stretch of time with Magical Samantha over the holidays and went away finding that I’m enjoying those companionable little moments beyond the frenzy and fuss of “dating” with her. What I really like is that she never fails to let me know that hanging out with me is high on her priority list. She’s got a busy life too and I like that carving this time out for each other is making us both feel pretty special. I’d forgotten what that is like. And, as much as I loved waking up all wrapped up in her, I’m still having a mad, passionate relationship with my own mattress. Tonight’s the night, baby, mama’s home!

I mentioned a friend of mine died. I didn’t know what happened or what I could do to connect with the family. Through a series of gyrations reminiscent of my days as an intelligence analyst, I did a human intelligence recon which required a Spanish translator, a trip two hours away, and with the help of lots of people who had absolutely no reason to help but did anyway, I connected with two of the three people who had the information I needed–people I did not previously know. My calls to those two people were met with disbelief but relief as they had both been looking for me as well. I think maybe we all had an opportunity that none of us had previously to connect with others who knew my friend. Betty—you were seriously loved, hope you knew that.

I’m spending tomorrow morning painting at my buddy’s place. Hopefully, I’ll be back in the groove later this weekend.

My Review At You Talk 2 Much

At last, my review! I could have done way worse, so I’m grateful. Good thing I did my Daily Affirmations With Stuart Smalley, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”

“This blog is sort of like lukewarm, plain oatmeal for me. The template is quite plain, which isn’t a bad thing. The writing is somewhat boring, which isn’t a bad thing. The sidebar is quite sparse, which again, isn’t a bad thing. I actually have very little feeling for this blog.

The entries, lacked personality. I felt like I was reading my 3rd grade teacher’s blog or something. Dull, dull, dull. The only entry that I found mildly amusing was when she took the car to get the oil changed. She had a bit of personality there. Otherwise, it just seems like she’s bellyaching and boring me to death.

I’ve got nothing for you.”

News Of The Vacationing

Berkeley also has this thing where when you want to throw something out - like a shirt despite how hole laden and unwearable it might be - or a pair of slightly dog-chewed slippers, you put it out in front of the sidewalk so someone else can pick it up and use them.

I’m trying not to feel bad that my ever-so-attractive slippers (replaced with beautiful fuzzy new ones by Magical Samantha this year) sit alone and unwanted by even those without slippers three days after Christmas.

We went to the Monterey Aquarium yesterday. Been near it, around it, by it, over it and under it, but this time actually went there. It’s very cool. I fell in love with some otters. If I was going to come back as another animal, that’s what I’d choose - except that whole getting eaten by sea lions thing.

Checked my work email and nada. I guess they meant it when they said they’d give me an actual vacation. Headed back to the ranch today. Relaxed, rejuvenated, and all needs having been tended to.

Small Lessons In Life

Magical Samantha is very involved in the Latino community due to her interests and her vocation. So, Sunday night we attended Spanish Mass at a church in the Bay area so we could see a play where a child she knows was to play Joseph. The play portion was canceled, but we did attend the Mass. Of course, I was clueless about what exactly was said, but got the gist. Mass seems to be Mass, in any language.

As the people were leaving, child after child ran up to Magical S., hugging her. I was introduced to parents and grandparents. Finally, the stream of people dissipated, and, because the play was canceled, we went to the boy’s house to give him and his sister’s their Christmas presents. Again, I did not speak the language, but got the gist. Kids are kids, it seems, in whatever language.

With more presents to drop, we traveled from neighborhood to neighborhood over the next two days. On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the large family of her comadre and compadre. Magical S is godmother to one of the children and was asked if she would serve as godmother to the baby on its way. This is a much bigger deal than the godparent gig I grew up understanding.

The family matriarch and patriarch looked over their brood proudly. Tears filled the grandmother’s eyes as she looked over them all during the prayer before dinner. Never have I felt like such an honored guest in someone’s home. I ate fabulous traditional food and met about 40 people (fortunately the non-immediate family was not in attendance–I’d have had a meltdown trying to remember names). Though they did not speak my language, graciousness is graciousness in any language.

Then, I got to participate in Las Posadas, the reenactment of Mary and Joseph trying to find lodging at numerous inns and being turned away, ultimately finding refuge. There is a whole routine for this observance that includes finally arriving at the inn and being let in–all in call and answer song. I got to be one of those inside that inn–as the people came streaming in, they were all smiling and full of love of family and their God. Though this is not my faith and this was not my family, and I didn’t speak their language, it seems that families are families in any language.

I learned a lot these past few days. I met a lot of hard working people who weren’t all necessarily documented. I started to barely, but truly, understand the concerns they have and the struggles they endure on a human and emotional level. Why coming to the United States is so important to many. And, what they contribute to our communities. Hard work is hard work, in any language. And, the desire for a better life is universal.

I always say that people need only know some gay people before the fact we are gay no longer matters. We become people–individuals they know, like, or respect. We are moms and dads and friends and neighbors. Maybe if we all sat with our immigrant neighbors in each other’s homes and shared a simple evening of family and tradition, whether we speak their language or not, we might stop seeing the differences and see all the similarities.

I support concrete and progressive immigration reform based on three primary criteria: family reunification, economic contributions, and humanitarian concerns.~ Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico

Gift of the Magi - Part II by O. Henry

Yesterday, I began by sharing the tale of young love…that love that is put high on a pedestal, where no hardship is too great, and in a time when giving meant truly giving of yourself for someone else.

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice– what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

“I Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs–the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims–just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Happy Hannukah, Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas, or Kwanzaa. May 2008 bring peace to us all.

Gift of the Magi - Part I by O. Henry

For Christmas, I give you the gift of O. Henry. I love O. Henry’s ironic wit and sentimentality. I can’t buy gifts for those who stop by these pages, but I can share a gift of the season. For the next two nights, I’ll be reading you this story:

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

Santa’s Early Arrival At Hahn at Home

Gifts were a bit sparse this year.  We did our Christmas this morning before the kids got on a plane for Tucson.  Notorious B.E.N. will be here in a few days in the neverending rotation of the children.

Our Christmas tradition goes like this:  Christmas Eve (last night, in this case) they open their stocking stuffers and the present their birthfather sends through the Angel Tree program.  She is diggin’ her new hat and glasses. 

 

Christmas morning (this morning):  We have leisurely breakfast, we clean up, then I go up and take a REALLY long shower, and then everyone can start.  The torture goes on though.  I pick the first gift for someone else, and they open it.  They then pick one for someone else, and so on.  It makes the entire experience last, everyone sees what everyone gets, and everyone gets to the see the reaction of the one receiving the gift they gave them. 

Em got an iRiver (no iPOD for her, as I know it will end up in the laundry and is three times the price of the iRiver).  It took me three hours to figure it out, load it, and show her how it works. I’m totally inept in the gadget department.   J-Man shared the first episode of the first season of Heroes and Psych with me while I did it.   And me?  Well, my needs are simple and I’m ecstatic with the gift I got from the twins.  Meet my new garbage can.

 

It’s just great seeing them “get” the joy of giving. 

Oh, and I got a really great craft purse from my dad and step mom.  Heh.

Ask the Middle-Aged Lesbian: I’m Having An Existensial Crisis

Dear Middle-Age Lesbian:

I’m having a bit of an existential crisis. I have my own business and find myself dragging me and my bathrobe and slippers into my office/bedroom is more than I can handle sometimes. But I’m not really complaining. I wouldn’t call this “work.” 2008 will need to be the year I figure out what I’m going to do with my life. Before I know it, my child, who is still in elementary school, will be in college and I’ll, well, I’ll be kind of old so I might not need to worry about it, after all.

But, that’s not why I’m writing. I have to go to my husband’s holiday party tonight. Joy. My husband told me he now works with someone who worked for my old company for about a month and basically told him she hated working there (for me).

She had a funny name. I don’t remember her. Can you imagine telling your boss that you hated his wife? This party is sounding better and better. Despite the fact I don’t remember her and that she has a funny name, should I torture her tonight, or subtly sabotage her career through use of subliminal messages as my husband reads his paper over breakfast in the morning and “ignores” me?

Signed,

Bitter, Part of One

Dear Bitter,

I don’t get the whole Generation X,Y,Z whatever the fuck generation thing—you know, they want to live at home with mom and dad, have no responsibility, and when they go to work, they want the world handed to them on a silver platter because they’ve been told their entire lives they are “special.” They got awards for just participating and their teachers were worried red pen would hurt their itty-bitty wittle feelings. They are so used to being shuttled to activities that fill up every millisecond of their days, they wouldn’t know what to do with free time. They declare every idea to pop from their mouth to be brilliant and the old fashioned people who still might be in charge out-of-touch. They go away to college and use over half of their cell minutes calling mommy because they can’t do anything on their own. They are so dialed in to cell phones and MySpace they never bother to learn how to drive. Fuck ‘em.

I’d get a bottle of Port and stay home. Send the kid to the babysitter and when your husband comes home from the party, remind him why ours is the generation of Free Love.

Love,

MAL

DIGG, The Technological Version of the Patriot Act

One of the things I love about my Community, whether it be the blogging community, the GLBTI community, or the community in which I live, is experiencing our diversity.  We are of all colors, religions, ages, sexual orientations or gender identifications, socio-economic levels, or any of the other differences that make us human, different, and special in our own special way.  But, watch out—danger lurks in these here blogging waters, and it’s not the bloggers you need worry about!  It’s Digg.

Who Are These Guys?

From Wikipedia:

“Digg is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on technology and science articles, recently expanding to a broader range of categories such as politics and entertainment. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control.

News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. This differs from the hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ.”

Those Banned

Recently, it was brought to my attention that several lesbian content related sites are being banned for indecency thanks to the “democratic editorial control” of Digg.  Digg has not provided reason for these bans (nor, according to their TOS, must they–seems a little Totalitarian to me) despite attempts by the blog authors to discuss the subject with Digg.  

 

Sites banned include Lesbiatopia, Just A Girl In Short Shorts, and a gay parenting blog on Parents.com.  And, really, who knows how many others. Cap’n Dyke was banned just this morning for merely supporting the bloggers’ contention that such banishment is unjust and not in line with the tenets of our greater “democracy.”

If you’ve read Becky over at Just A Girl, you know she likes to post pictures of women in very short shorts (duh, the blog name, right?) and even occasional pictures of buxom topless women.  Her content, however, ranges from her deeply held faith (a Catholic no less, not a Pagan Black Wiccan who sacrifices puppies and kittens at the altar in the midst of a sexual bacchanal), her Libertarianism and support for Ron Paul, her feminism, recommendations for adult toys (so dear to my own heart) and outrageous media stories and their impact on our communities (vis-à-vis, the woeful lack of common sense we, as Amercians, show in general by some of the laws we pull out of our ass to “protect” the citizenry).  While the photos could be considered risqué to some (if you’ve never watched network television in your life), they don’t even approach lame and ancient Playboy in levels of prurient interest.  I don’t imagine 13 year old boys are looking at Becky’s photos for inspiration—ya’ know?

Lesbiatopia is a collaborative site authored by many talented lesbian bloggers who write about social topics of interest to our community.  Obscene?  Only if the fact that lesbians both read and write for the blog, maybe.  

The Cap’n merely spoke up.  Banned.

How to Help

Please take the time to read the blog links outlining the whys and wherefores of how this situation has snowballed. It’s fascinating.  And, it scares me—who the hell are these nameless, faceless little dweebs who are apparently banning lesbian sites for “adult content” based on something they are pulling out of the ether.  And further banning those who disagree with them for nothing more than agreeing that those sites should not be banned?

At least those little snot-noses had the brilliance to headquarter in San Francisco.  I hear that Paula, Queen of the Surf Pirates, who is also a contributing author at Lesbiatopia, is planning to contact the San Francisco Human Rights Commission regarding what has MORE than the appearance of being a homophobic attack on our community’s write to free speech.

I don’t have to worry about being banned – my blog software is not supported.  Too bad.  Write about it. Boycott Digg.   Grab that photo at the top if you support the cause and post it while you still have the right to do so.

 Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. ~ Potter Stewart