Quote of the Day, 11/9/09

“Blue sucked my brains out.”

-Neighbor Girl Claire

Weekend in Photos, 11/8/09

At the Mighty Kindness [Hippie] Hootenanny, and playing in Fall leaves

When Avoiding Means Not Avoiding What I Really Want to Avoid

I need to address my poor health.  I compulsively overeat (always mood-altering food like sugar and grains), don’t get the exercise I need, and stay up late, avoiding the stopping that happens when I go to bed.  Stopping is scary, apparently.

I’ll start by going to bed, so I don’t have to address what I just said I need to address.

Vision in Camo

So far Rocky has been a Vision in Pink, a Vision in Blue and a Vision in Stripes.  Today, as we were getting ready to go to the Mighty Kindness Hootenanny (a festival for pacifists, hippies, artists and people from my church), I asked her, “Would you like to be a Vision today?  Let’s see … pink, brown … oh, here’s green!”

“I want to be a Vision in Camo.”

No, dammit, I don’t have a photo.  You’ll just have to envision it.  She was camouflage top to toes, the “camo” on the pants was in the shape of butterflies, and her curly hair was up in pigtails.  And I think we were the only people at the Mighty Kindness Hootenanny exchanging punches and kicks with our camouflage-wearing child.  It was in play, but still.  What kind of hippies are we, anyway?

On the way out, Ry climbed a wonderful old knobby tree, and when she was 6 or 7 feet off the ground, my pal who was with us said, “There’s an owl.”  I smiled.  “No,” she said, “there’s an owl. NO NO DON’T PUT YOUR HAND THERE!”

Reaching for a hold, Rocky had put her hand into the big hole at the top of the cut-off trunk, at the same time that a screech owl stuck its head up from that hole to see who the hell was climbing its house.  I guess it couldn’t see her, with the camo and all.

Downeastern Girls

Yesterday Rocky and I had lunch with Brian, a friend from public school who I hadn’t seen in 20 years.  We were both theatre geeks from early on.  We started our careers as Father Time and Wanda the Witch in 4th grade.

Today Caitlin arrived from New England for the weekend – my first true friend.  At 15, we bonded over our mutual love for Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Elfquest, and, obviously, the fact that we were nerds destined to be completely outcast from society.  We decided to stop trying to fit in, when we met each other – it was better to be outcast together.  It’s been 10 years since we last saw each other.

It is so amazingly refreshing to see people from my childhood – my actual, down-in-the-roots Maine childhood, which is too often overshadowed by my fancy-pants arts high school childhood.  I mean, I went to school with JEWEL, yo.  I shared a bathroom with JEWEL.  JEWEL poured salt in my bed.  I went to boarding school with the Prince of Ghana.  Woo, am I hot stuff.

The day I ran away from home, young 16, in the heat of summer, I borrowed a pair of Caitlin’s too-small sneakers so I wouldn’t burn my feet walking the tracks back to the apartment.  It all comes around, if we’re lucky, back to what matters, back to what’s real.

Blox on Pop Culture

You’re going to get real tired of this “a post a day” thing.  Unfortunately the time I usually remember to write is late at night when my brain is fuzzy.  Damn – it’s only nine.  Okay, my brain is fuzzy all the time.  Oh, lucky you!  I can’t write worth poo any more, ever since I started on meds.  Now, with – what’s it called? – anesthesia apparently mucking around in my system long-term, it’s double bad.  See?  Who the fuck writes “double bad”?

But a promise to myself is still a promise.  I’m going to write right through the mind-wreckage, and you can stop and stare in – what’s it called? – [long pause] – aha.  Morbid curiosity.

I miss writing.  Not this drivel, real writing.  And I miss my sex drive.  Yes, that too – pretty much nonexistent, ever since, as my mother put it, I got to count to 99.

“When they take you back, the anesthesiologist will have you count backward from 100.  You’ll experience the best high of your life at 99 – then you’re out.  Addicts live for 99.”      Actually, I don’t remember 99.  They had me at the pre-anesthesia cocktail shot.  Whoooooah.  And I quote: “Whoooooah.”

I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself tonight.  Sugarpaw, on the other hand, has it right.  She gets bossed around all day, is smaller than everyone but the cat, doesn’t know how to drive, is so hormonally confused she’s constantly humping Sunny … and yet she’s extremely content.  Look at her, lying there!  Not a care in the world.  She’s all, “WTF? Chillax, biatch!”

Which reminds me.  WTF up with the English language, biatches?  Seriously.  My very young coworkers at the Envy regularly use words like “chillax” and “ginormous”.  Have “chillax” and “ginormous” been around since the ’80s, and I just was never cool enough to know?  Are “chillax” and “ginormous” kept secret from asshats like me?  And who the hell says “cool” anymore?

Chillax: a blend of chill and relax.  “What you all doin’ back here [in the breakroom]?”  “Oh, just chillaxin’”

Ginormous: bigger than gigantic and enormous.  “My last guy had GINORMOUS manboobs.”

Plus, bonus words! Fugly = fucking + ugly;  Craptastic = the opposite of fantastic.

I wonder what other gems of popular culture I’m missing out on, seeings how I’m a total douche? Tomorrow: another chance for you to indulgisfy your morbidosity.

 

Quote…Quote…Quote…Link!

Break Room Quote of the Day:”With great boobs comes great responsibility.”

-Amy, favorite coworker at the Envy

 

Facebook Quote of the Day: “Don’t worry. The old people will die, and won’t be able to vote. Then we’ll get our way.”

-Me, to Mainer friend enraged at Prop 1 outcome

 

Ballsy Wife Quote of the Day: “What, all you have to do is sign it.”

-Ru, to the landlord, upset that we gave her a check instead of cash this month

 

Bonus Link! Bonus Link! To prove my point about Maine.

Maine, Nov. 3

I’m sitting in the cold with my snoring puppy curled under my elbow, watching a Facebook diologue between my old friend from Maine and several of his friends, all closely watching the results come in on the hated Proposition 1, to overturn Maine’s new same-sex marriage law.  My friend is in a “straight” relationship (in quotations because I don’t know how he identifies).  In fact, all my Mainer friends, with whom I have reconnected via Facebook, are straight (or possibly bi and in straight relationships, which wouldn’t surprise me), and most of them have been working HARD on the No on 1 campaign.

I have not been too actively involved in the same-sex marriage issue.  The day my sister called me from Maine, my home state, and excitedly told me they had just legalized it, a door opened for me.  But only a little.  I still haven’t been that active.  But seeing this, my straight friends fighting for my equal rights, their shouts for justice on my behalf – makes me wonder – why haven’t I stood up for my own equal rights?

For the past twenty years I’ve known I’m queer, and have joyously and unashamedly lived it.  I’ve spent the last 10 years with a woman I love desperately, unequivically, deeply and truly.  It may sound corny, but it’s true: I love the person.  Certainly her gender identity and expression is beautiful as well, but seriously, Melissa could be a man and I would be happy – so long as he was still … well, Melissa.  Although my pansexual identity did possibly afford me a certain privilege (in that if I wanted the easy path, I could technically have just “gone straight” and would have been perfectly happy), in my marriage to Melissa I have given up that safety net.  Not only am I married, ie. totally committed till years and years of fruitless therapy do us part, to a woman, but she’s a brown woman at that.  An Arab, no less.  Of Axis of Evil infamy.  And we have one kid who’s Arab/European, and one kid who’s Arab/African.  Hey Melissa, lets be a walking target for bigotry and hatred!  Doesn’t that sound FUN?  I’m rambling, aren’t I?

Why haven’t I stood up?  Because for the past ten years, having essentially given up my – bi privilege? what the hell would you call it?  – and having witnessed Melissa in her struggle as a person of color, and having witnessed the nasty looks my black god daughter’s white moms have gotten, and having recognized bigotry in my own heart … I have come to feel that there’s no hope for change.

Somewhere in Washington a president is having a very bad dream right now about a working poor, queer mother in an inter-cultural, multi-racial family feeling like there’s no hope for change.  No we can’t, she’s saying sadly.   He’s trying to jog over to her to tell her “Yes We Can”, but he can’t catch his breath, and he’s damning those cigarettes to HELL.

Come on, Maine.  Come on.

Because I have to write something, every day…

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

 

Fsh.

Special Ops Fairy, Meet Candy Fairy

“Happy Halloween little Candy Fairy… or big.  Give me a huge present!  If you want, it can be a toy.  If not, you can bring me a dollar or a coin.  Rocky”

“Dear Rocky,  Thank you so very much for the candy.  It will feed many Fairy children this winter.  Enjoy the gift!  Warmest regards, the Candy Fairy”

So begins November, my birth month.  Ry is in her room with Kate and Claire, the neighbor girls, playing with her new toy from the Candy Fairy (some parents are absolutely brilliant. I’m not naming names, I’m just sayin’).  Ry is sick with a good old fashioned cold – nothing porcine or avian or equine or whatever.  I’ve never before been grateful for simple snot and a cough.

Today is day two of Write Every Day No Matter What.  I’ve been so inspired by Maggie, writing (at times enlisting the help of  a friend to do so) even when hospitalized for emergency surgery.  I mean, the woman put in her own freakin’ naso-gastric tube - I suppose I can write a few lines a day.  Plus, I’ve eaten Mags’ blog for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Time to give back a little.