Just checking in

"But freedom is an idea. It always comes down to Earth in the form of some simple thing we love. Like being able to play the song we want to hear."--Austin Dacey

I promised shorter, more frequent posts. But I haven't blogged because I haven't had anything all that interesting to blog about. Oh, I've left comments, but nothing worth committing to my own blog. I don't have anything really new to say about current events, either. Others speak about Future Justice (?) Sotomayor and secret CIA plans with more knowledge and eloquence than I do. I've thought that maybe I should take some of my friends up on their insistence that I try Twitter, so I could just dash off the random thoughts I have, with the built-in editor of a strict word limit. As those of you who've been to the Front Porch before know, I have a bad habit of running off at the keyboard when I do commit myself to blogging.

Instead of blogging, I've been at my terrace garden, picking tomatoes and peppers and snipping herbs. It is beginning to pay for itself. My brother also has a terrace garden, and we dared each other to try corn, just a few stalks. The experiment worked out much better for him than for me, but since he's in Florida and I'm in NYC, that's not such a surprise, really. I have a *lot* of squash of all descriptions from the farmers' cooperative to sneak into everything. L'Ailee's getting a little tired of it.

I've been on the phone with friends and family. As much as I love to e-mail and text and play around online, the phone is still where the real stuff happens for me. Some things, you just have to open your mouth and *say*. I taught one of my Swim Girls what country music is really brilliant for when I sang Joey + Rory's "Cheater, Cheater" for her in the locker room. (How can you not love that oh-so-direct "Where'd you meet that no-good white-trash ho?" Seriously?) She asked me to help her load some more "good country songs for me" onto her iPod. "Cheater, Cheater" made it, and so did Reba McEntire's "Strange"--I'm guessing it's pretty obvious what she's going through now. Sometimes I wish I could offer the world more than a sympathetic ear and a perfect playlist.

I guess I'll just offer up a collection of odds and ends that I've been thinking about instead:

This is the article I quoted above my post. I wrote in my last blog entry that I think of love and sex as human rights. I think of music and other forms of expression the same way. Among other rights, young Iranian adults are fighting for the right to make and listen to the music they want.

Why the vampire craze is bad for women. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I found this worth linking anyway.

It might not be so bad, I don't think, if people didn't lose their shit over teaching teens how to own their sexuality.

What am I doing being a Witch for free when I can get paid (with a live-in position!) for it?! And, you know, L'Ailee loves England...

SpongeBob SquarePants turns 10! There's a documentary about it tonight.

My brother is 27 and dying to finally launch his own farm. (We think it will happen next year.) He is apparently one of, if not many, quite a few. USA Today ran this about young organic farmers.

Finally, Danica Patrick's scary fan encounter makes me grateful I never went into NASCAR.

Fourth of July!

This has been a really exhausting week for me, and of course, I can't really talk about why, because I can't really blog about work. Really. ;-) But my trip to DC to meet up with members of the Pandas Unlimited group and celebrate panda boy Tai Shan's fourth birthday next week is off. I have earned more time off than I ever had at my disposal, but can't use a second of it until late October, for Samhain in Florida. Oh, well. Things could be worse, lots worse. L'Ailee and I ended up snuggled on the couch earlier tonight, just crashed together with a couple of the cats. Eventually, we got up, and she took to the bed, and I took to the computer.

So I'm going to talk about random stuff again.

* What in the name of hell is going on with these Republican governors?!?! First Mark Sanford in South Carolina, now Sarah Palin from Alaska! I still can't believe her resignation. The Associated Press article I link to makes it sound like Palin's going to concentrate on running for president for 2012, but I honestly can't believe that. For one thing, her action is incredibly, stupidly impulsive. Not even ultra-conservative Christian Republicans want that...right? Obama, Clinton, and McCain all kept their jobs as senators while they ran for president. Palin herself kept her job as governor of Alaska while she ran for vice president. Her term ends in 2010, plenty of time to make that run, even by today's standards. No, something's definitely up, and we'll find out what it is in a matter of days. I don't like that I'm practically slavering over it, but here I am anyway.

* L'Ailee wasn't too tired to be funny: "Maybe she will go away with that governor in South Carolina."

* I misdialed, and learned today that the ring tone she programmed into her cell phone for me is "She's Country", by Jason Aldean. I'm not so sure the song fits me--I'm not *that* country, and with all the states mentioned, there isn't a single line about Florida in it at all--but she blushed all the way up to her scalp when she saw my reaction. For the record, my ringtone for her is an older techno song, "Atom Bomb" by Fluke.

* She really blushed when I told her about this news story. It seems that a woman was a screamer, and a group of concerned teenagers decided to go and save her from her boyfriend. Years ago, L'Ailee set me off in a tiny Manhattan apartment with paper-thin walls. The next morning, neighbors stopped us in the halls, high-fived her, and said, "So *you're* the girl from Florida!" to me. Totally embarrassing. But at least nobody got hurt!

* This weekend, the Statue of Liberty's crown re-opens for visitors for the first time since 9/11. Awesome timing, and I'm glad to see it. We thought about going, but so did a whoooooolllle lot of other people. We decided that we can go up to the crown on another weekend. We're definitely doing it before summer's out, anyway.

* India decriminalized gay sex! I am amazed and delighted. I think that love and sex are basic human rights, so any progress in that direction anywhere is a good thing to me. Also, in Hungary, same-sex civil unions are now legal. Hungarian LGBs have some work to do--they can neither take their partner's name nor adopt children. But a step is a step. Besides, my great-grandmother was from Hungary, so I can't help being a bit pleased just because of that.

* A feminist blogger whom I'd encountered, and liked, earlier this week said that sports are like "soap operas for men." Well, sometimes they're for women who get depressed by the news and don't enjoy the gory details of Kate and Jon Gosselin's divorce, too. L'Ailee convinced me that I needed to pay attention to the NHL trades this summer "so that you are not surprised when you see new people on your team." Oh, like the way I pay attention to NASCAR business dealings in winter! Makes sense. I'm pretty much happy with how the Pittsburgh Penguins did. I'm not happy that we lost Rob Scuderi, but I'm fine with Hal Gill going, despite his famous "long reach." I am really glad that the Penguins retained Ruslan Fedotenko, who works brilliantly with Evgeni Malkin.

And I am thrilled that they have Bill Guerin for another year! There are good game-related reasons why he needed to stay, but I had quite a few impure thoughts about Guerin during the Stanley Cup playoffs. He's stocky and not exactly classically handsome, as has been pointed out to me, but I have always rather liked that. He's a really tough and physical player. Plus my 35-year-old eyes can picture what's under his uniform without any icky cougary aftertaste, unlike so many of his teammates. I found myself wondering why I didn't notice him last winter, when he was with the New York Islanders, but, well, he was with the Isles. Being on Sidney Crosby's line can heighten almost any player's doability as well as his statistics. Why, poor sad Marian Hossa probably saw some action in that position a couple seasons back!

* Speaking of which, Hossa, a bane to Penguins and Detroit Red Wings fans alike, is now going to the Chicago Blackhawks, with a shocking 12-year contract. L'Ailee and I chorused, "He's Chicago's problem now!" Pens and Wings fans who aren't married to each other have probably done that, too.

* I'm still in love, or something, with Tony Stewart. Once again, qualifying was rained out, so once again, he is on the pole because he leads in points. I really don't understand why whoever schedules these things doesn't think to check yearly weather patterns for an area, but I've got no problem with Stewart on pole. The Daytona races are always my favorites, too, probably because I was raised around the Superspeedway there. I was really happy to learn this week that he has a development driver, and she's a woman named Jessica Zemken. He has also been a mentor to Chrissy Wallace, who sometimes races in the truck series. As a former little girl with NASCAR dreams, I love seeing that my very favorite driver will help women out without making a big screaming deal about how "inclusive" or whatever he's being. Speaking of which, he asked Danica Patrick to participate in his Prelude to the Dream race, which is on his Eldora Speedway (a small dirt track in Ohio) and attracts racing royalty. That could just be good business, since she's so well-known. But if integrating a boy's club is good business, that's fine with me.

* Happy Independence Day to my fellow and sister Americans! Happy July Fourth to everyone else! I really love this holiday. No gifts, no baking, no drama. Just bomb pops and fireworks and a race and, most importantly, a day intended to celebrate revolution and freedom. A look at the news reveals just what powerful ideas our Founding Parents had, even if they weren't perfectly implemented and we still have to fight to get things right. For me, the great thing is that we *can* fight with the expectation that something good might come of it. I also consider the weekend of the Fourth rather than the Summer Solstice to be my celebration of summer. So hopefully Sunday we'll go to the beach, and even if we don't, we'll find something to celebrate anyway. If nothing else, I guess we can thank North Korea for the sparklers.

* My paternal grandfather used to tell me that some things are too serious *not* to joke about. It's advice that serves me well, but is sometimes hard to live by.

Since Stonewall

We've been going to lots of mass gatherings lately. L'Ailee and I learned after the Mermaid Parade that while the LG Lotus is one hell of a lovable little cell phone, it's not very good at taking pictures. (Yes, I have the purple one and L'Ailee has the black one.) Otherwise, I'd have posted a couple for once. Thankfully, if you follow the link, others had better equipment! Next year, we will really dress up. So many other women (and some men) had creative interpretations of the "mermaid" concept, and not just the ones marching. So that's another costume for us to plan. I did Zombiecon last October, which is people dressed up like in very topical zombie costumes taking over Manhattan bar by bar. I was Zombie Sarah Palin with an axe in her head. (Hope nobody tries to fire me from my blog for that one! :-O) L'Ailee will be going with me this October.

On Sunday, we are going to participate in the Pride parade in Manhattan. We wouldn't miss this one. Among other reasons, it commemmorates the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which kick-started the modern LGBT rights movement. Yes, I know there's way more to our history than that, but Stonewall provided a real flash point, and we're grateful for it. It's especially instructive to note that Seymour Pine, who served as the NYPD's deputy inspector at that time, still thinks raiding the Stonewall Inn was right.

I keep thinking of the different post-Stonewall lives my friends and I have, lives that wouldn't have been possible 40 years ago, not even in "liberal" New York. On Saturday morning, before the Mermaid Parade, we took L'Ailee's best friend's daughter out to a sporting goods store to buy her father and stepfather gifts for Father's Day. She'd painted her nails with a bright green marker to show support for the protestors in Iran, all on her own. She is a big believer in fairness. We hugged her--we thought it was so sweet. But she can be a bit spoiled and bratty, too. She opined that her mother shouldn't marry her boyfriend because "then I'd have three dads to shop for and that's too much." Both her father and stepfather had slipped her money for his husband's gift. We kept having to remind her to stop shopping for herself and look at things for them. When she proudly placed her purchases on the counter, she let the clerk know the gifts were for two fathers. He said matter-of-factly that he'd "seen a few other kids get gifts for two dads."

Our friend with early-onset Alzheimer's is gay. He almost lost his partner because of the disease. In a healthy man in his late thirties, you just don't think Alzheimer's--drugs or psychosis were suspected instead. His partner is thinking they should get married very quickly, while they can, so that he has legal standing to make decisions. He hoped they could marry in New York, but that probably won't happen this year. At least a marriage contracted out of state can be recognized here now. L'Ailee and I have offered to spend time with her friend so that the partner can have breaks. He's grateful for the offer, but says for now he wants to spend all the time he can with his partner. They won't be at the parade.

We have two friends who are in their seventies, a lesbian couple who we consider role models. They taught us to divide chores on a "who cares most" basis. They will be at the parade. They came together in 1968, a year before Stonewall. They were divorced mothers in their thirties, pooling resources. They'd had feelings for other females before, but stuffed them down. The feelings flared back up for each other. One's teenage daughter was disgusted, and they have only barely communicated since. But the other four of the five kids they raised together got used to it. They've thought of leaving Brooklyn to retire, but their grandchildren live close by, and anyway, they figure they need to work as long as they're able, anyway. They remember thinking of the Stonewall Inn and other gay bars as "trashy," but finding the riots inspiring. "People should be able to get together and not be afraid," one said. "This isn't Iran."

No, this isn't Iran, or Russia, or Saudi Arabia. For that reason alone, we should celebrate. It can be better. It has been worse. I have said before that I don't think Pride really means that the participants are proud to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered. Those are neutral qualities. It's more like "not shame" in the face of people who tell us we need to be ashamed of those qualities. But this time, it might really be pride. We should be justifiably proud of our "ancestors", whether they were at Stonewall or quietly knitting their lives together in a row house in Brooklyn. We should be proud of ourselves and each other, too, for all the ways we survive and thrive in the face of adversity.

Links, links:

Everyone has talked about Michael Jackson's death, and will continue to talk about it. Some have talked about Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon. Me, I would like to talk a bit about Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, who died this week at 57. She is the doctor who, ten years ago, diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer in an Antarctic research base. She also continued working as the only doctor on that base for the other people there. I admired the hell out of her for that. She went to Antarctica because her life desperately needed a change after a bitter divorce. After her breast cancer was treated, her taste for adventure lived on--she kept traveling, even returning to Antarctica. Her book, Ice Bound, actually made me want to go! (They're so mean at the National Science Foundation, though--they didn't think a Florida Cracker with a history of depression made a good candidate for Antarctic support staff.) I am glad that she was able to find love again before her cancer came back.

Rachel Maddow, helping bring butch sexy back. Of course, I know it never left!

Interesting article on the generation gap among gay men.

Do New Yorkers want to elect Bloomberg for mayor, or Big Daddy?

Andrew Klavan, a right-wing writer, is the latest in a long line of insecure little boys posing as macho conservative men.

Finally, speaking of manliness, Marvo at the Impulsive Buy's review of the Braun BodycruZer razor made me laugh like a four-year-old.

Making things make sense

L'Ailee and I so often have parallel things going on in our lives. A friend at her work has been scaling back and back and finally left for good today due to illness. In his case, it is early-onset Alzheimer's. We didn't know it could hit before age 40. She works at a gym, teaching martial arts. He was an instructor, too. He will be working part-time elsewhere, in a job he wouldn't have considered just a year ago. Healthwise, he did everything annoyingly right! He helped L'Ailee finally quit smoking, and eventually even talked her out of wearing nicotine patches and chewing the gum. He's only a few years older than us. L'Ailee doesn't want to talk about it. I can give only hugs and the lobster salad that she loves to eat and I hate to make and an ear when she's ready. Sometimes I want to force that girl to open up, but I know (now) that it never works. She'll talk when she wants. Tonight, she wanted to punch her speedbag until it broke off the chain and almost through the window. That probably said enough.

I know that some of my blog's readers are dealing with cancer, either in themselves or someone they love. Therefore, I don't want to alarm anyone unnecessarily. But my friend, who used to be my work friend, called me from several states away tonight. She and the family she created moved back to her hometown, close to her parents. She used to laugh and tell stories about the place that made it sound backwards as hell. She's not doing well. It's a hell of a horrible thing when a person goes through chemotherapy and has *all* the horrid side effects that can come with it, but cancer is still spreading inside of her. I know some people who have danced with cancer and won. They had surgery, they went through chemo, they came out the other side. It's treatable, damn it! But not always. Ten years ago, another friend of mine danced with cancer for the fourth time in her short life, and it finally claimed her at age 23. I'm far enough past that age now that it seems hopelessly, tragically young. I haven't seen 44 yet, unlike my friend who's struggling now. That seems too damned young, too. I hate committing these words to writing. But it's her doctor's words that count, really.

Things happen on their own time, the Gods' time, the Fates' time, whatever. They happen. It's always too soon for us. My father died of a heart attack when he was 38. My maternal grandfather said mean and horrible things about him to me. In a fit of childish rage, I asked my aunt why he was still alive and my father had to die so young. My aunt told me that God wanted good company around him, so sometimes he'd take people young while they were good and keep bad people around for a very long time so they'd have a chance to become good. She says now that she came up with that on the fly just to comfort me. It worked. I still think on it, though I don't believe in the male and monotheistic vision of God that she does anymore. We try to comfort ourselves and make things make sense.

All around us, things happen. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, the real power, is threatening even more death and chaos if protests continue.. Protests are continuing. I am amazed by their courage. I am amazed that Twitter and YouTube are helping to feed their spirits and get their message out, too. I never thought I'd find anything of real worth on Twitter, but I guess when you have something of real worth to share, you can bend anything to your service. I keep praying and hoping. And North Korea's crazy-ass government is threatening to test missiles by Hawaii. I keep praying and hoping about that, too. Japan's government told ours about it. They know what happened last time an Asian country decided to try something in Hawaii, and it wasn't even a state then. Now it's our president's back porch. I hope hope hope that whatever the rest of do, it won't all be demolished by people with too much power and not enough compassion.

I think on Dorothy Parker's words, yet again:

Eat, drink, and be merry
Make love the whole night through
For tomorrow, we may die!
But, alas, we never do.

I have cheerier links.

L'Ailee and I are very happy about this. Yes, we're actually happy about something. We hyphenated our very ethnically divergent last names three years ago, in the same order, as a show of solidarity when we were forcibly legally "divorced" by judges in Massachusetts. (We are now legal again.) We have been unable to get our hyphenated last names onto our passports. Now same-sex couples can use their married names on their passports, like mixed-sex couples. Pitiful little crumb, but a tasty one. We'll take it.

We get to go to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade this weekend! We missed the past few for various reasons, such as having to be present while couples we'd matched got married. It takes place on the Summer Solstice every year. I'll be having a quiet celebration with a circle on Saturday night, but this seems like a really good way to kick off summer. My friend Yemaya says it's a blast. We're going to skate at the Mermaid Parade Ball, too, since we've already been doing that lots on streets and sidewalks. We're missing the Sonoma road race, but that's fine--road races kinda bore us, and anyway, you can't get a Sprint mobile recap on the Mermaid Parade and Ball.

Ah, it's Father's Day, too, and we can't completely pretend it doesn't exist. The bisexual fathers in your life might be oh so pleased to know that an animal species has recently been discovered to have plenty of good bisexual dads within it. How about...cockroaches? Now I'll feel all guilty next time I get out the bug spray...for a second...

I guess because of the recession, record labels are issuing a *lot* of new product from artists that were popular in the 1990s. Maybe they think thirtysomethings are nostalgic; maybe they're nostalgic for our CD-buying habits! That said, I'm loving Sonic Youth's new one, "Sacred Trickster", and not just because of the title. It is sooo good and sooo short that I must play it twice in a row every time! This doesn't irritate anyone at all. ;-)

Finally, wasn't this post blessedly hockey-free? The Front Porch hasn't been that way for two months! However, I'm going to ruin that by sharing this. I about choked when I saw it, because I'd joked over at Pensburgh that someone might have to tell Sidney Crosby he can only get to first base with the Stanley Cup, what with all the kissing he was doing to it. So here he is sleeping (or passed out) with the Stanley Cup! I think it's almost as good as Kyle Busch's smashing of his guitar-trophy. L'Ailee sniped, "He looks like a college boy on MySpace." I can see that, but he's also the captain of my NHL team with the Cup, and, um, that's what counts.

Watch and wait

I don't watch TV news much, but I've been following the Iranian elections and their aftermath. It was just what I expected--a fair contest, fairly counted, no disruptions at all....oh, wait. L'Ailee and I joked weakly about how no cell service, texting, or Facebook would make a lot of Americans under 40 take to the streets and set things on fire, too. I want to do a work for the protesters, and I'm not sure how. I think Ahmadinejad, a name that I now have no trouble spelling, vastly underestimated the level of anger among Iranians. I see something big coming here, and hope against hope that not too many people will have to be hurt or worse to make it happen. It's not my fight, but we're all interconnected, so I have an interest anyway. I wait.

On Thursday morning, my friend Mona went into labor. Thursday night, little Ryan Guillaume was born. In a few weeks, he'll be absolutely adorable. Mona and her husband J.C. think he's perfect already, though. :-) My friends who are parents tend to have girls. The only one who had boys, before Mona and J.C., has two boys and three girls. So I'm happy that baby Ryan goes against that trend! We won't be seeing him or his parents the next couple weekends, but we'll be very happy to watch races with him eventually. Because I lost my father when I was 7 and L'Ailee is estranged from hers for very good reasons, we like to forget Father's Day and treat it like another Sunday. However, we're so thrilled for J.C. that he gets to celebrate his first Father's Day next week. Mona says next time, she'll time it so the baby's born right before Mother's Day.

Oh, and last night, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup. What a hell of an end to a hell of a season! My heart went to my feet when the Wings' Johan Franzen checked Sidney Crosby and made him go "crunch" against the wall. His knee failed him for the rest of the night. Thankfully, the rest of the team managed just fine without him. I was so impressed with Marc-Andre Fleury, the Penguins' goalie! He was so skittish at Detroit's Joe Louis Arena, but he lost his apparent fear of the place at the very best possible time, throwing down some awesome acrobatic moves to deflect the puck. (If this hockey thing doesn't work out, he's got a job at Cirque du Soleil.) Evgeni Malkin got the Conn Smythe trophy for his playoff performance, which I and pretty much anyone else who's been following the NHL think he totally deserved.

And then Crosby was just well enough to fulfill his duty as team captain one last time this season:



I am a classic Pisces girl. I'm not ashamed to admit I teared up. But I've been doing that a lot lately anyway.

Eating around the dead mouse

I was going to blog about this, eventually, and then I watched that horrible Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals and decided I'd post about that. This weighs a little more on my mind.

L'Ailee and I were grocery shopping yesterday afternoon. Now, I understand, in retrospect, why someone might have wanted to confront me. But we're still pissed.

We were looking at ice cream. I make it pretty often, because I can customize it for us and make it egg-free to accommodate my allergy, but sometimes I just want someone else to do it for me! So I was looking at ingredients. "I'm a little bored with ice cream," L'Ailee admitted, in her normal (low) conversational voice.
I didn't take offense. I like her to tell me these things, because it's so much easier that way. "I don't get it," I replied with a smile and my own normal conversational voice. "I've never been bored with ice cream."
"Nothing could make you bored with ice cream, could it?"
"That's right." I pondered, searching my mind for scenarios. "Why, if I found, like, a dead mouse in the carton, I'd probably eat around it."
"Ewww!" L'Ailee covered her face. I love doing that to her.
"No, I wouldn't, either," I admitted. "But if I called up the ice cream company and told 'em about the dead mouse, and they asked me if some free ice cream, the exact same kind I saw the mouse in, would make everything okay, I'd say..."
"Of course!" She shook her head and chuckled.
"Hell yeah." She knows I'm a fiend for freebies, too.

Just then a woman with two young kids approached and asked, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but can you please quit talking like that? About mice in ice cream? It's really gross."
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't know y'all were there." I think even my very accent offended her--I've seen that look often enough up here.
Nonetheless, she continued. "That is really rude. It's bad enough that I have to explain your lifestyle to my kids, and then you talk about disgusting things like that!"
"Your kids look more interested in the ice cream," L'Ailee pointed out. Indeed, it seemed I'd done nothing to reduce their appetite for it.
"That's no excuse for being rude."
"I apologized for my joke. It was tasteless," I said. "It was also private. As for our"--here I made air quotes--"lifestyle, you'd encounter it someplace eventually. We're not gonna apologize for being us where your kids can see it." She wanted to say something; I cut her off. "If you have a problem, you can tell us you have a problem. Don't hide behind your kids."
"I'm not hiding!"
"Mind *them*." I took L'Ailee's hand, and we walked away, without ice cream. It wasn't fun. We find the whole idea that our affection, our holding hands, our give and take, is simply so offensive that children should never be exposed to it, lest they--shudder!--ask questions extremely bigoted. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last. But we've been seeing what this does to our friends who are parents, our brothers and sisters in other states, us in the political realm. It's tiresome.

A few of the people who come to my house for games and races are people I met at work. I don't blog about work very often. I've said I don't have rules, but that's one of my rules. I literally helped draw up the rules regarding it for my office. We can't be specific, we can't give away trade secrets, we can't demean someone else by name. But I think I need to share something that's bothered me.

We've all been on edge ever since the stock market went slideways anyway. Now we're starting to feel a bit better. Well, a person there who has been a real stabilizing force, whom I like and respect a lot, has cancer. And instead of getting better, it's spreading. She's taking a leave. "Fighting this is going to be my full-time job," she says. She doesn't feel up to much else. I want to say more, but we said so much at my house. Tomorrow I won't be seeing her at her usual place, and she won't put a hand on my shoulder when I start stressing, and I'm tearing up at the very thought yet *again*.

I cried buckets before we went out to play street hockey, which we did so we wouldn't become reclassified as plant life from all our sitting around. I'd cried on L'Ailee's shoulder, quite literally ruining one of her T-shirts, before that. My work husband, who played on my Penguins fan (or, in his case, Wings-hater) team, didn't cry. He rather violently checked several of his erstwhile opponents, his friends, instead. L'Ailee was one of them. She's a pest on whatever surface she plays, but she didn't deserve to be sent damn near airborne the way my work husband did it at one point. I of course sided with my actual wife rather than my work husband--I stopped to help her up and make certain she was okay, and I didn't work with him so well. He apologized profusely, and L'Ailee's genuinely forgiven him, so I can, too. Forgiveness is not something that comes naturally to me, unfortunately. Long ago, I decided to accept this about myself, because I realized that my fundamentalist relatives' emphasis on "forgiveness" really meant guilting others into forgiving *them* and never returning the favor. Normally I think I'm just fine, grudges and all. Tonight I don't.

We wanted to be distracted and have fun, and we got even more bummed out instead. So I poured out my frustrations late last night as if it was just a Gods-awful game that bothered me. Sports can take you away from the things that are really bothering you, and they can serve as surrogates, too. It's easier to cuss out a team's badly timed incompetent performance than it is to cuss out a friend's badly timed cancer.

The nice thing about liking more than one sport is that you get another chance to see something you'll enjoy. This morning, the NASCAR fan forums and lists were buzzing about crazy little Kyle Busch's win at the Nationwide (analogous to "minor league") series race in Tennessee last night. NASCAR gives weird trophies, and this track gives the winner a guitar. Busch caused a genuine controversy by smashing it in true rock star style. A lot of people don't like Kyle, because he's so talented and so young and so cocky, and this just confirmed their feelings. L'Ailee and I laughed instead. We needed that.

I'm glad I neither went surfing nor saw "Drag Me to Hell" today. I'd have missed Tony Stewart's tour de force performance in the Sprint Cup race at Pocono today! There are so many reasons why that win shouldn't have happened. He started last. Pocono's a difficult track, with its distinctive triangular shape. He damn near ran out of gas. Carl Edwards was running so well. But Smoke moved oh so relentlessly from the back to the front, and when it counted, he *stayed* up front! I didn't get to celebrate the way L'Ailee and I have come to enjoy, of course. The win didn't make my or anyone else's problems go away. However, it did shine a ray of light into our minds for a few minutes. I'll take it.

Oh, *wow*.....

5-0, Red Wings versus Penguins, tonight in Game 5. There is no way to describe that game without the use of the word "clusterfuck." What a spectacular meltdown by the Pens! At least my team logged lots of penalty time! L'Ailee, A., and other Red Wings fans/Pens haters in attendance at our house couldn't even bring themselves to trash talk after a while. I'm hoping for redemption in Games 6 and (let's be wildly optimistic) 7. Otherwise, I guess we could always claim the boys in black and white were doing their civic duty by saving Pittsburgh money on victory celebrations, per the Onion.

Also, L'Ailee's Red Wings fan team won street hockey this afternoon. And my cheap-ass youth stick finally broke. And we can't even have winning sports team sex because L'Ailee got thrown onto her ass twice and then crashed into the goalie net when she scored. That's right--the guys on our team were classy, too. Good thing we have lots of pillows and ice packs.

Also, Tony Stewart was going to start on the pole at Pocono tomorrow, but had to go to a backup car after crashing in practice and will now be starting at the back. Smoke is brilliant at going from the back to the front, but Pocono generally doesn't allow for that kind of thing.

I don't want to say the Gods owe me in such a petty little situation like this, but...nah! Guess I'll see what the surf is like tomorrow, and if that's no good, go see something cheerful like "Drag Me to Hell." I'll watch it through fanned fingers, kinda like the game tonight.

At random

The past few days have been really exciting, though not so much for me and L'Ailee. Once again, busy but boring. Also, I am in a bit of a pessimistic mood. So once again--and I know y'all love these!--I will post in bullet points.

* The Stanley Cup was pushed up. I may still be serving salsa made from my own terrace garden tomatoes and peppers for the last game, but we were glad. However, the first two games had the Penguins doing the stupid shit from last winter that I referenced. (Reason #4,802 why I love L'Ailee: Sunday night, I howled "Fuck me!" when Malkin missed a goal, and she whispered, "After the Red Wings win.") They really do have to get over their collective fear of Joe Louis. I was happy to see the win Tuesday and hope to see another tonight.
* But I must brag on something that happened this weekend. Since we were watching two Stanley Cup games and a race, it was starting to seem horribly ironic to us that we were becoming couch potatoes while watching other people move. So L'Ailee organized a game of street hockey on roller skates, Wings fans versus Pens fans, between the race and the game on Sunday. Some people picked a team based on which one they hated more, and a couple neighbors were drafted. ("Red team or black and white team?") I worked better than I ever expected with L'Ailee and her best friend A. this past winter, but they were my opponents in this, which also broke our rule about never playing games against each other. So it was all the more surprising that I...hat-tricked! First time ever! I had a really awesome celebration, too: I stood there like a deer in headlights, then squeaked, "Did I just actually score a third time? Seriously?"
* L'Ailee's being told she looks like Rachel Maddow right now. A lot. I know some of y'all would like that! I mentioned this in an earlier post, but A. is growing a sympathy playoff beard for the Wings, and he dared L'Ailee to stop shaving her head as well, and she never, ever turns down a dare from him. I had the brilliant idea of using a black beard-dyeing kit to get rid of the white streaks that have been driving her nuts; it worked fairly well. (The main difference between that and regular dye is the applicator, of course.) Both of them really want to shave. If, Gods forbid, the Wings win again, A.'s husband and I will be taking care of them; if the Pens win, they will take care of each other. Me, I'm keeping a Sidney-Crosby-scoring-a-goal computer wallpaper up at my work, mostly to drive the New York Rangers fans nuts, and making sure I wear Ed Hardy's "Love Kills Slowly" perfume on game days. I disavowed the use of magick for sports in this very blog a while back, but figured that if two of my favorite atheists can use sympathetic magick, so the hell could I. One thing I have learned not to do, ironically enough, is wear Lucky You perfume on race or game days, which is obviously why Tony Stewart is now the first owner-driver in 17 years to be on top of the Sprint Cup championship points. Apparently it's lucky for me but toxic for the athletes I like. :-)
* All that said, reality intruded on us this past weekend, despite our very best efforts. At our house, the opinions about abortion varied widely, and the group that comes to watch races and/or games has pretty much agreed to never, ever talk about it ever. George Tiller's murder shocked us all, however. We all felt like something really dangerous was bubbling up. "Civil War 2.0," Mona whispered, and nobody argued. I've felt this way myself. We didn't cry so much for Tiller as for the fact that someone felt compelled to shoot him...in church, traumatizing the rest of the congregation...and we knew that particular church shooting wasn't going to "count" to some people. We knew Tiller wasn't going to "count." And we knew that the people who demonized him hate most of us without knowing us, too. I don't know about blaming the likes of Bill O'Reilly. I never liked it when, say, hip-hop music was blamed for violence or sexually explicit material was blamed for rape. I think that other adult citizens have the right to have their brains and eardrums assaulted by O'Reilly, too.
* Jeremy at Good As You spoke my fears quite eloquently this weekend.
* It's weird, though. One thing about the culture war is that it's not so much about states as states of mind. Bill O'Reilly is a native New Yorker. Like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and other conservative potstirrers, he broadcasts from NYC. One of the states that allows same-sex marriage is Iowa, in the Midwest. In Orlando, I had large networks of bisexual friends (we referred to ourselves as a "broke Bloomsbury") and Pagan friends. I try to have faith, to believe in us and the US. I love my country and, as L'Ailee can tell you, am incredibly tenacious about what I love most. That used to be called "patriotic." "Patriotic" is becoming another code word now, like "family" and "moral" and "traditional" and "values". It's past time to take those words back.
* But same-sex marriage is legal in New Hampshire now! That makes 6! I'm getting pretty doubtful that New York will be #7 this year.
* I love Senator Patrick Leahy for introducing the Uniting American Families Act, which would allow Americans to seek residency in the United States for same-sex partners.
* A lesbian couple in Fresno, California alleges discrimination by a hospital. I myself have an incident--some of you may remember when I surfed into a sailboat--when I had to scream and make a scene for the right to have L'Ailee in the room with me. (And then I passed out.) I am only telling the super-short version of that because I'm tearing up just typing that--it was scary as hell! I can't imagine what this couple endured. I'm telling that to tell this--Kelvin, the Gay and Lesbian Issues Examiner at Examiner.com, has a pretty decent bit of advice for same-sex couples who intend to travel. If that applies to you at all, please read it!
* Awww, another cute gay penguin couple with a chick! What is particularly gratifying about this is that it happened at the Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany. A few years ago, their keepers imported girl penguins to "straighten up" their six gay penguins. It looks like they've given up. I'm so glad. I wrote an article about that, if you're curious. And no, my love for penguins is not the only reason why I support Pittsburgh, though it is fun to tell my future stepdad so.
* What's a great move for clothing retailers in a recession? Cutting back on plus-size lines. That's right, the fastest-growing clothing market. I swear, if I'd gone to a better business school and been hit on the head with a cast-iron pan a few times, I'd understand this stuff.
* Finally, two books I will desperately need to purchase new and read are coming out this autumn: an autobiography of Sinead O'Connor and Look at the Birdie, a collection of previously unpublished short stories by Kurt Vonnegut. I can feel those in my hands on the bus right now! (And yes, I'm that old-fashioned--I still read books on paper. Newspapers, too. I don't own a Kindle or download anything but music. I like the idea of reading things that will work when batteries and power fail, things that can be circulated easily and given away to others.)

Rematch

Subtitle: "Everyone Else Has a Metaphor; Why Not Me?" Even if you hate hockey and wish I'd shut up about it--and given the interminable wait for the Stanley Cup, I will for a short while--there's a little twist at the end. I'm also not going to talk about the same-sex marriage cause for a bit after this, because I'm trying to learn more about North Korea and General Motors and Sonia Sotomayor like everyone else. Please indulge me now.

Came home to something awesome last night. I was so ready to accept a win of any description after the protest, including two dollars on a scratch-off lottery ticket.



That's right--Penguins swept the Hurricanes, won the Eastern Conference championship, and are now headed for the Stanley Cup! Last year I learned that it's supposed to be bad luck for the team's captain to touch the Conference trophy, because it, not the Cup, would be the last trophy he would get to touch that season. I love to learn about other peoples'' superstitions, and accepted this one. So did Sidney Crosby last year. This year, as you can see above, he carried it. (That would be Evgeni Malkin, the other half of Pittsburgh's Two-Headed Monster, next to him.) It's not that he stopped being superstitious--just the opposite, in fact. "We just wanted to change things up. We didn't touch it last year. Might as well grab it and get a picture with it and move on and go after the one we really want." I am extremely superstitious, super-superstitious if you will, and really couldn't have become anything different given how both my parents were. I liked that.

Technically it's not over--as I type, the Blackhawks are playing exactly like a team that doesn't want to end their season just yet--but they'll almost certainly be meeting the Red Wings again. Last night was the last time L'Ailee could say anything remotely complementary about the Pens. She will strenuously deny that she owns, let alone ever wore of her own free will, a tight black Malkin-in-Cyrillic T-shirt. (Which she looked really rather hot in, by the way.) I truly understand now why some fans of Florida's college football rivals, the Gators and the Seminoles, have "House Divided" stickers on their cars.

It's even sweeter this year. The Penguins started out being such a mess. They were discouraged by the Cup loss to the Wings, everyone had their own agendas, former coach Michel Therrien lost their attention, and Crosby got frustrated and let every single opponent get well inside his head. Then Coach Dan Bylsma (not "interim" anymore!) was hired in February, and some really inspired trades were made, and the Pens made their fans proud again this spring! This is exactly why you can't lose hope.

Actually, it's pretty appropriate for me to talk hockey, since I only got into it through marriage to a very patient longtime puckhead and amateur player. We missed most of the game by going to the Day of Decision protest, and we're so glad we did. It felt damned good to go out in the street and be counted and *say* something! There was a lot of sadness and anger in us and around us. L'Ailee and I have never been west of the Mississippi, except for a flight to Alaska. So we don't know Iowa or California. But we had these ideas in our heads that Iowa was "conservative" and California was "liberal." To lose "liberal" California, then, is particularly maddening.

But there's a rematch here, too! There is already an effort to get a measure repealing Proposition 8 on California's ballot in 2010. And, um, the New York State Senate has both a marriage equality bill and GENDA to work on before the end of session!

I believe in my heart that my teams will ultimately take it all.

Make it hurt, make it count!

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."--Oscar Wilde

Proposition 8 was upheld by the California Supreme Court!!!!

As so many are saying, it is not unexpected. I was gratified to see straight people with white ribbons in their hair or on their lapels today. My BossLady hugged me even though L'Ailee and I are still legal, actually not affected by this at all. (Kind of like the people who thought they had "the right" to vote on someone else's marriage in the first place.) I even see a silver lining in the fact that the 18,000 couples married during their window of opportunity will remain married. Maybe people around them will see it's nothing to freak out over. At least their marriages weren't legally torn away from them--that is a sick and horrible feeling I would not wish on anyone else.

I am still so sickened and angered by the idea that anyone, anywhere, feels they have the goddamned "RIGHT" to vote on someone else's marriage!!!!!! I mean, I think the idea of a conservative Christian mixed-sex marriage where the wife promises to "obey" and has to "submit" is icky and repellent and I'd never want one--can I vote on that next? No, of course not. And the thing is, I wouldn't want to! I really don't believe I have that much control over how other people get to live! But we're the "selfish" ones. Yeah.

L'Ailee has a couple martial arts classes today. She tends to make examples of people who don't respect the process of the class--that is, come in late, talk, insist on texting through the class, etc. Those are the ones she picks to help demonstrate moves. I pity anyone who comes in late and/or brandishing their cellie today. She will have absolutely no problem doing what she always advises her students: "Make it hurt, make it count!" I think I could, too.

We're going out to the Day of Decision protest tonight. Hope some of y'all do, too.

PS--I wasn't gonna post my usual buffet of links, but ladies and gentlemen, behold traditional Christian marriage at work.

That's what parkin' lots are for

"Ain't no need to fight/y'all take that redneck stuff outside/that's what parkin' lots are for..."--Dierks Bentley, "Sideways"

David Reutimann won the Coca-Cola 600 330. Will wonders never cease?

Wow. Exciting things today, and not all in a good way. I'm glad we stayed the hell out of Manhattan this weekend, because there was an explosion inside a Starbucks on the Upper East Side. Thank the Gods nobody was there!!!! Speaking of explosions, the crazy bastard in North Korea tested new nuclear weapons. How the fuck does such a medieval country manage that?!

It was pretty interesting at my instructor's house, too, when a couple of guys got into a fight over one of her teenage daughters. The daughter was encouraging the hell out of it, too. I have to admit, I haven't had many fights done on my behalf, but I have enjoyed the rare occasions when they come up. But I never saw a participant have to go to the hospital over it. He'll be all right, but a cut to the scalp always bears looking at. My instructor will never serve beer or soda in glass bottles again!

Tomorrow brings a nail-biter and a stomach-churner. The California Supreme Court finally rules on Proposition 8's legality. One of L'Ailee's many cousins, part of her family's wide-spread "diaspora," is a lesbian in San Francisco. We hope we can call her to congratulate her, even though she so frequently says, "It will be harder for me to find a woman to marry." We hope this turns out *right*. We keep thinking, *Iowa* got it, FFS, so why not California? I am not speaking to several of my own relatives at the moment, because they think "the will of the people should be respected." I yelled too often, "So let's have people vote on your marriage, then! You respect democracy, right?" I really don't get why our opponents act like same-sex couples should be okay with this situation.

We are going to wear white knots in support of everyone's right to tie the knot tomorrow. I can easily tie my hair back with a white ribbon, and L'Ailee will wear a white lace scarf around her head, and both of us will wear white scarves tied at our wrists. Win or lose, we'll be TiVoing at least part of the Pens/'Canes game to go here. The Eastern Conference championship is far easier to predict than the California Supreme Court anyway!

It looks like many of my blogfriends posted moving posts for Memorial Day. For me, it's hard to really comment. I don't have many military connections in my life. Very few of my relatives served after the Civil War (paternal side) or emigrating from Europe (maternal side.) I have to make myself remember. It helped that at my belly-dancing instructor's house, we engaged in a moment of silence at 3 pm, along with many other people around America. I know I owe more to the fallen soldiers and their families.

Links, links:

Women created Memorial Day No, I didn't learn this in school, either.

Many bi people and Pagans have served and continue to serve in America's military. I'm proud to remember them, too.

Donna Reed was actually pretty cool! She was a favored pin-up girl for GIs, who wrote her tons of letters during World War II--and she kept hundreds of them.

Finally, this will totally louse up my theme, but Puck Daddy has video of what was easily the most hilarious moment of the Red Wings/Blackhawks game yesterday. I played my first games of ice hockey this past winter and wear my (aqua glitter) mouthguard properly; so does my 8-year-old hockey-playing friend in the next post down. If the Blackhawks' Patrick Kane doesn't understand that he needs to wear it correctly now, well, nothing will teach him!

Big lessons for little girls

Today we went to Coney Island for a bit and watched the Red Wings win (I smell Wings/Pens rematch!) and dealt with the rain delay for the race. Tomorrow we will miss at least most of the race, for I will be performing at my belly-dance instructor's annual picnic at her house. This time I'm dancing to Dierks Bentley's "Sideways". My friend Yemaya O'Reilly will also be performing, for the first time in her case. We can't miss it! Actually, I should probably be asleep right now, but that's okay.

Of all the things to discuss, from Memorial Day to swine flu to a bee infestation in Manhattan to the possible General Motors bankruptcy, I want to address this. Something that we keep rehashing happened on Saturday. L'Ailee's best friend A. used to have almost no access to his daughter after his divorce. Now his ex-wife is, unfortunately, wrapped up in herself, and is therefore giving him and his husband tons of access. A. had to work last night, and the Penguins game was on, so the husband and the 8-year-old came over to watch. Just to illustrate how ridiculous the Stanley Cup playoff scheduling is, I barbecued. My mother told me there were several things wrong with that. I'm not arguing, but I'm not going to miss the Pens contending for the Cup, either.

The 8-year-old and her father (and stepfather) bond in part through a shared love for hockey and racing. I understand that, because when I was little, racing was a means to bond with my Daddy. It still is, though he's long gone now. She told her Da she wanted to be either the first woman to win the Stanley Cup or the first to win the Sprint Cup. Just like my Daddy, her Da saw no reason why she couldn't. That was such a gift for me even though my father died while we were building my first (and last) soap box derby car. I'm glad she'll have that. So many girls still don't.

They went with minors hockey because it's cheaper and more easily accessible for a child in New York City than soap box derby or quarter midget racing would be. Plus she has people in her life, such as L'Ailee, to help coach her. (Note that I did not say "teach sportswomanship." :-) She did quite well her first season and can't wait for her second. Like L'Ailee, A. and his husband are Russian. L'Ailee and the husband used Evgeni Malkin's performance to inculcate ethnic pride in the 8-year-old. "You see, we are the very best at hockey!" L'Ailee told her. "Being half-Russian gives you an advantage!"

During intermissions, we talked of deeper things. "My grandma says she feels sorry for me, but I don't know why," the 8-year-old said. She was speaking of her maternal grandmother. The paternal one lives in Russia, and they've never actually met.
"Oh? Why is that?" asked her stepfather. L'Ailee and I both winced slightly.
"Because I play hockey and I watch it. She says I'm a tomboy, but I'm not one. I'm just a girl who likes sports." This while she was waving her little hands around so the hot pink and lime green polish I'd applied would dry faster.
"Of course you are, sweetie," I said. "'Tomboy' is a mean thing to say."
"She doesn't like you and Da because you're married," she told her stepfather. "I mean, because you married each other and you're both guys. And she doesn't like that I go to your house when Da has me," she said to us.
"Do you like to come to our house?" L'Ailee asked in a very calm tone that was belied by her flashing eyes.
"Yeah, of course! It's lots of fun, and you have good food!"
"You sound like your father," I couldn't help saying. He'll eat us out of house and home if we let him.
"It is his decision, not your grandmother's," L'Ailee told her.
"I think she doesn't like gay people." She looked at me. "Or bi people like you and Da."
"That is not unusual," her stepfather told her. "Unfortunately, a lot of people don't like us."
"I don't know why," she said.
"Neither do we," I admitted.
"When your grandmother was young, girls couldn't do everything that they liked," L'Ailee said. "They didn't play most sports, they didn't say things like they wanted to win the Stanley Cup. They were supposed to marry men and become mothers and not want much more. Maybe she thinks that's the way girls should be now. But you know that you can do whatever you like, right?"
"Right."
"So you should feel very fortunate when your grandmother says things like that. You can remember that you have things better than she did. You have so many choices that she didn't. You can be whatever you want, and you can marry whoever you want."
"You don't even have to get married at all if you don't want to," I added.
"I know that." She snuggled up against her stepfather. "I wish she knew I don't feel bad. I only feel bad when she says I should feel bad." Oh, Gods, my heart broke in a thousand places!
"Maybe you should tell her that," her stepfather suggested.
"But she doesn't say it to me. I eavesdrop. I know that's wrong, but she's so loud, I always hear her."
"Then you aren't doing anything wrong. You can still talk to her," he advised. "Does she know you that like that Logano kid and Sidney Crosby? Because you think they're cute, not just because they're good athletes?"
"No. She doesn't like me to talk about hockey or racing."
"Try to tell her how you feel about those guys anyway," he suggested. "It might make her feel better."
It took her a few seconds to get it. "Because that means I'm not gay, too."
"Exactly."
"She should love me even if I'm gay when I grow up. Or bi. She is my grandma."
None of us knew what to say for a moment. Then L'Ailee whispered to me, "What is that you say about bridges?"
I thought I knew what she meant. "Cross that bridge when you come to it," I said clearly enough for the 8-year-old to hear. L'Ailee nodded. "If you come to it. Right now, all you want is for her to listen when you talk about the game, right? Maybe come to your games next season?"
"That would be so cool! My cousin ________, she goes to his stupid basketball games all the time!"
"Definitely tell her *that*," the stepfather said emphatically. And then the game came back on.

Soon after the game, the 8-year-old started nodding off. We let her sleep in our bed--"I love sleeping in a big bed!"--while we talked. We were pretty sure our advice was imperfect. For one thing, she may be boy-crazy right now, but her Da was girl-crazy at a very young age, and it took him until his late twenties to figure out that he also liked guys. But we all have enough hard-earned experience with these things to know a Band-aid when we see it. "I never expected to have a kid, not even for weekends," he said. "I mean, I'm gay. The books always say to answer the child's questions when she asks and not any more. I read so many books, but they don't tell you everything. I want to say the right things all the time." L'Ailee and I could certainly empathize with that, and we're not even her stepparents! We don't want A. to have to endure months without his daughter ever again, and we definitely don't want that to happen on our account. We three told A. what transpired during intermission. "Oh, that. Her grandmother is a poisonous bitch," he said. "You were fine." We really hope so, for their sakes.

By fortunate coincidence, my own best friend, Yemaya O'Reilly, is also bi and same-sex-married, with a daughter who just turned 8. The two little girls love to e-mail when they can and to exchange postcards, and they're always so thrilled to see each other. They are a mini-support group as well as simply good together. It helps that Yemaya's daughter is also athletic, a little water baby who loves surfing and swimming. Yemaya doesn't have to worry about custody, because her daughter's father left the picture as soon as the stick changed colors. L'Ailee and I wondered what would happen when these girls, so loved by their parents, got older and realized exactly what the world thought of families like theirs. We are all beginning to find out. They live in a city where they won't be the only ones they know with families like theirs, and where there are big and structured support groups should they need such things. It's sad and awful to think they might one day. L'Ailee and I found ourselves deeply grateful that it's physically impossible for me and financially unwise for her to carry a pregnancy to term.

Links, if you actually want to read any more:

COLAGE already provides support to children of LGBT people who need understanding friends.

One thing I am really looking forward to is Agora, a movie about the life and death of Hypatia of Alexandria. (Don't know who that is? Shame! Look here! I know there will be no car chases or explosions and that the ending will hurt. But I want to support this anyway. The Wild Hunt blog gathered up lots of reasons why I and other Pagans should.

Lastly, damn it all to hell, My Name is Earl got cancelled!!!!! And I've finally found a good use for Twitter...

Things that are more important than sports

I open by noting that the brilliant, amazing, and downright adorable Tony Stewart won the NASCAR Sprint Cup All Star race last night. AWESOME!!!! It is both his first All Star win and, more importantly, his first win as a driver/owner. I hoped he knew what he was doing when he left Gibbs to launch Stewart-Haas Racing. I should never, ever have doubted.



We will not be watching the Red Wings this afternoon. Actually, we have to get ready to leave soon. We were going to skip the New York City Rally for Marriage Equality today--the speakers sound incredibly boring to us, she doesn't care for crowds, we wanted to watch the game, we didn't want to go to Manhattan on a Sunday. (It's enough that we work in Manhattan.) But given the events involving other Russian LGBTs in Moscow yesterday, L'Ailee feels that she would be remiss if she didn't attend this rally. "Do you want to go?" she pleaded.
"Babydoll, I'll go wherever you want."
"I have to do this," she almost whispered. "I *can*, so I have to. I can do nothing for Russia, but I can do this for us." Of course.

It almost seems trivial. We probably won't get arrested or beaten up tonight. Our concerns are getting there and back, not falling asleep at the "entertainment," and getting hockey scores on our cell phones. Our response to homophobia lately has been to roll our eyes and say "Oh, iiiicccckkkk" to the likes of Miss California, not to pack up the bare necessities and go into hiding. We are supporting a politician, Governor David Paterson, who is supporting us. But I am convinced that any attempt to bring more happiness and/or freedom to one's part of the world leads to a slightly happier and freer world in general.

We got ours--we're legal. But it would have been so much better to get married in a place that we know instead of a state we'd only ever visited for the purpose of getting married. Besides, it's not just about getting ours. We'd like others to be able to have theirs, too. We're so grateful we can try.

Guest Post: "Dear John"

Moscow's several LGBT pride marches/protests ended very, very badly today. "That was to be expected," L'Ailee snapped. She has not emerged from her sewing room since. There's nothing either of us can do, but the situation being faced by her siblings abroad is heartbreaking. I'd love to find something we can do, and yes, that's a hint.

Anyway! I promised a guest post. Over at the BiNetUSA e-mail list, there was recently discussion of gay male biphobia. Several gay male biphobes seemed to have something in common--a bi ex who broke their hearts. John Clark has a solution. He wrote a "Dear John" letter for these situations calculated to help all-the-way gay men understand the difference between hating the individual who kinda deserves it and hating the entire bi male group. I liked it lots--in fact, I laughed lots. And I felt it needed more exposure.

So if you'd like to look at my links or read my reactions to events or share in my Penguins gloating, look at the next few posts down. I have officially posted more in May than I have the first four months of 2009. For now, I cede the floor to John.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear John,

I've decided our relationship is just not working. This is not because we are both boys; I find you very dull. Though I do like show tunes, I do have issues with "Cats". I feel my dislike of said musical has nothing to do with my orientation. Enclosed are reviews from many gay critics who also found this play boring.

Second, the girl I am now dating doesn't shave and could likely beat you in a fight. I feel my relationship with her does not make me any less queer. In fact, the strap-on we bought online is much better endowed than you are (although I am not making ANY judgments on size). I just mean to say she "gets me" better than you, and I am happier now.

Just because I am now with a female, this does not mean that I want to be purged from the LGbt mailing list. We plan to attend every marriage rally we can make. I may even go back to that bar we met at someday if and when our strap-on dies. When I go there (if it is still there and has not become a hipster bar), I will not be going as a closeted straight man, but as a bisexual. As such, I will not be taking my rainbow flag from the bumper of my car but may have to cover my yellow equal sign if space is needed.

In closing, I hope that our failed relationship will not lead to anger at all bisexual men. Since you dated me, there may be part of your makeup that needs to fall in love with a bi guy. Please don't hold this against all bisexual males as I'm sure at least one of us thinks "Cats" is a great work.

Unhealthy Things

So the Pittsburgh Penguins will be taking on the Carolina Hurricanes for the Eastern Conference Finals. Anything's better than the boring Bruins, and I like seeing a Southern team go that far, but they are so going down. The scenario will be remarkably NASCAR-like, as brothers will be competing in Charlotte. (Jordan Staal of the Pens versus Eric Staal of the 'Canes.) This makes me wonder whether Jordan will do like Kyle Busch and put his big brother into the wall!

Also, the Detroit Red Wings get to advance to the Western Conference Finals by a late goal. L'Ailee pounded the couch and scared the cats when Dan Cleary scored. She asked me to display a picture of Cleary's reaction--which, I admit, was rather cute if one forgets that there is no "cute" in hockey--but she knows how to get her own damn blog if she wants things like that posted. I really wish she'd take me up on that one day.

Anyway, I've got a few more important things to talk about. Really truly. Swine flu's back. Three schools in NYC were closed over it. L'Ailee once again loses income from the after-school program which provides her second job. Once again, I am trying not to work myself into a state over it, but this does show you can't ever get too complacent.

Oh, and NYC health commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden is everyone else's problem now. That's right, the man who never met a substance he didn't like the idea of banning...the man whose response to the bedbug infestation that nailed us and many other NYC residents last year was to support a ban on insect foggers which thankfully did not go through...is soon to be director of the Centers for Disease Control. Yeah. Thank you, President Obama. Pay close attention to the news, y'all, 'cause something you want or need is on his long list of things we all need to be protected from, I guarantee it.

To put a nice fat cherry on top, there's an emergency response drill on Sunday. Guess why? At least we got a warning this time. I suppose us ignorant adult citizens who desperately need protection from ourselves should be grateful for that. *sighs*

Guest post tomorrow!!! Anyone regret wishing I'd update more frequently yet?

Links, links:

The Slavic Gay Pride March in Moscow will be exciting, in an ugly, dangerous, and horrible sort of way. There are threats of arrests and forced "conversion" attempts. As if I'm not already grateful enough L'Ailee and her two best friends are here and not there!

Today was Endangered Species Day! Did you know that? Me, neither. However, Pandas International chose today to launch their Pennies 4 Pandas fundraiser, specially designed to encourage participation by children. If you think I'm not telling the kids in my life about that, well, welcome to this blog!

The prom as a sacred rite of passage. I never went, but I do love finding sacred ritual all over the place.

Mark Morford's interesting take on the teen sexting panic. For a moment there, I forgot how good he could be when he's coherent.

Finally, a couple of great videos/songs about relationships. Jen Foster rebuts Katy Perry with "I Didn't Just Kiss Her". Then, please ignore the treacly tacked-on ending and enjoy the rest of Rodney Carrington's "If I'm the Only One"

HELL YEAH!!!!!!!

The hockey fans among you may already know this, but, um, the Pittsburgh Penguins won last night and advance to the Eastern Conference finals, just to let you know.



What an awesome team, what an awesome series! Technically, it wasn't an awesome Game Seven, but one thing I've learned in all my years of NASCAR fandom is to take a win however I can get it. It seemed like all the Penguins were taking their turn to score (except Evgeni Malkin, oddly enough, but he tried all night.) L'Ailee and I both applauded when Sidney Crosby took the Capitals' Brooks Laich's stick to his face, got up, checked to make sure he still had all his teeth, then almost immediately scored a second goal. Hell yeah! Tonight we find out whether Pavel Datsyuk can show up to the Red Wings/Ducks Game Seven in mind as well as in body. We'll TiVo My Name is Earl and the Office and find out who's next for the Pens tomorrow morning. Because...um...there is, in fact, another series, and then the Stanley Cup itself. It almost got easy to forget.

By the end of this weekend--hold me to it--I will be posting something that contains no references to hockey or racing (was that a cheer?) or even my life, really. I have a truly cool guest post coming up, from a perspective that you just don't see often enough--a bisexual male one. Hope y'all enjoy.

For now, I have a few links.

Imagine dealing with summer when you always wear a fur coat year-round. Tips for helping your cat(s) deal with summer.

The new Star Trek goes where everyone's gone before, at least politically.

Was Paul Newman bi? Did he have an affair with James Dean? Don't care if it's true or not, it's the thought that counts. *fans self*

Why atheists have better sex. ("Getting into your wife's favorite sport and sucking her into yours so you can have lots of winning sports team/driver sex" isn't listed as a reason. Still a good article, says a Pagan married to an atheist.)

Reality TV, and why Ritalin may not work.

Florida makes me proud of my roots again! Florida must now recognize other states' gay adoptions. Congratulations, Lara Embry and family. Thank you for standing up.

Finally, please go congratulate Jeremy at Good-As-You too!!!!!

Game Sevens and Mothers

It's been very busy at work, but I can take a breather now. Not much has gone on with L'Ailee and I. The New York State Assembly passed the same-sex marriage bill Tuesday night--yay! We're a bit worried about the Senate, however. I hope they understand, at least, how much money they're losing as couples like me and L'Ailee, or L'Ailee's best friend and his husband, or my best friend and her wife, go to MassVegas or one of the other states where we can be legal. We'll like David Paterson better if it passes.

I'm decorating my pregnant friend's nursery--she wanted some things redone, and that's okay--and I feel a little bit bad because even the no-VOC paint I'm using is making her feel a bit sick. L'Ailee's nose and palate are legendarily sensitive among our friends--she literally cleans the catboxes with a clothespin on her nose, and I can't put more than an atom of cayenne or paprika in her food without making her suffer. Mona says she knows how L'Ailee feels now.

We're still obsessed with the Stanley Cup playoffs. L'Ailee was astonished by the Ducks/Red Wings fight last night and hopes Pavel Datsyuk won't be hurt for Game Seven. And it looks like--toes crossed so I can type!--the Penguins might have Sergei Gonchar back for tonight. I'm still wondering when Tony Stewart will win this season (so close, dear Gods, so close!), and we're trying to vote Juan Pablo Montoya into the All-Star Race next week. (By the way, if you have a Sprint data account and use your handset to vote, it counts double. We're taking full advantage of this.)

We desperately needed a break from the TV, though, so we accompanied my beloved Yemaya O'Reilly, her wife, and their daughter to the beach on Mother's Day. They enjoyed surfing much better than a brunch or spa day, even though the conditions weren't the greatest. There's just nothing like the ocean for clearing the cobwebs out of your head. The really great part of Mother's Day, for me, was that my brother remembered, too. Too often, I have sent my mother cards and flowers, which is what she always says she wants, and then the fact that my brother forgot kills the day for her and sends her crying to me. But he remembered, and everyone had a good day. I'm immensely grateful for that.

Let's go Pens tonight, let's go Red Wings tomorrow! We both have our nails bitten to the quick!

Links, links:

Speaking of penguins, real ones can swim for an incredibly long time.

The NYPD has a record of being horrible to transpeople, both victim and offender. Please see the article at Queers United, then sign this petition asking the NYPD to adopt a policy of just treatment for transpeople.

Yay, we might have another female Supreme Court judge! But boo....the nominees are being judged on their weight!

Patti Wiginton, About.com's Pagan/Wiccan guide, is requesting photos of handfastings, or weddings, for a photo gallery. It's that time of year!

An open letter to Kyle Busch by a writer who disapproves mightily of his attitude. Funnily enough, the things he hates are things that L'Ailee and I both love. To quote my wife, "Is he supposed to say, 'Oh, I am so *delighted* that I crashed, my hands were getting tired anyway, and I don't have any more space for a trophy right now'?" Her incredulous tone is harder to capture. :-)

Annnd, I quote L'Ailee again! In Siberia, the non-Russian tribes are holding an election for a Supreme Shaman, a religious leader to unite the various shamans there. Shamanism is experiencing a revival in Russia. L'Ailee was born and raised in Siberia and has a non-Russian Siberian grandmother; her first reaction was, "What, why? The healers don't need a patriarch, they need freedom." This seems to be a common sentiment among the Siberians, too.

Finally, could the end of voice mail be nigh? Truly, I hate voice mail, except when L'Ailee leaves me an interesting message while I'm at work, and texting is easier even for that.

Just a little further south

Mexico's re-opening, all the American schools are re-opening, and the swine flu seems to be letting up. Yay! It ain't over yet, but that's one less thing for some of us, at least, to worry about for now.

Some excellent news came out of Washington, DC today! DC is one city in which L'Ailee and I would both consider living. I like that it's big and bustling, but human-sized, and it has enough Russians in it to satisfy L'Ailee's need for that community. The only problems, really, are that our friends don't all feel the same way and that my mother works in DC a lot! We get along better the further away we are, and she'll agree with me.

Whatever. Today, the DC City Council approved legislation that recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere! Now, there is a snag. Congress must approve all DC laws, and they have 30 days to review this change. There are some ass-holy activists working to get Congress to overturn it. However, tonight, I can savor the flavor of this. It seems like a new state or, in this case, district is getting on board every week! Awesome!

Also, the National Zoo is on Panda Pregnancy Watch! Female pandas act pregnant after their yearly mating (I know, sad, right?) whether they are or not, and their tiny babies don't show in their chubby bellies, so it's just a matter of watching and waiting for zookeepers. Even at almost four years old and 200 pounds, Tai Shan is still one super-adorable panda boy.


(Picture from Unka Bobby)

However, I'd dearly love to see a baby brother or sister for him, too. The world just needs more of that kind of cuteness.

What I don't need any more of from DC is Washington Capitals victories! L'Ailee and I don't root for the home team here, so we wouldn't there, either. The NY Rangers fans in my office had a good laugh at my expense until I reminded them which team the Caps beat in the quarterfinals. It is soooo depressing when your team's captain manages a hat trick and that's still not enough. Of course, Alex Ovechkin had a hat trick of his own and a whole team playing with him, while most of the Pittsburgh Penguins' minds were already on summer vacation or something. (I might have screamed, "Geno, wake the fuck up!" a couple of times.) Sidney Crosby wanted Capitals fans to be told to stop throwing hats for Ovechkin, which will cement the whiner reputation, but I thought it was funny as hell. I like whiners if they're talented enough to tolerate; if I didn't, I wouldn't have been a Tony Stewart fan all these years. Anyway, I think Crosby would like a flood of hats and a delayed game a whole lot better if it happened for him in the Mellon Arena. Like everything else, it's a matter of perspective.

Links, links:

The Obamas' vegetable garden is leading to other high-profile garden plots. This is very cool (and in keeping with my theme!) My brother and I both have balcony gardens, and we love the entire idea of urban gardening.

As much as I love my home state, there are many reasons why I'm not going back to Florida right now. Here's another: They're getting a Jesus license plate. Seriously, someone needs to let my fellow Floridians know about these crazy new inventions called "bumper stickers." Or they can accept Jason at the Wild Hunt blog's suggestion for a Pagan plate....

Yay! TopFive.com is finally coming back!

Finally, from the Onion, For Gay Couple, Fulfilling Lifelong Dream of Marriage Not Worth Moving to Iowa. Ha!

Stronger, faster, better than before

I have been so frustrated by my inability to redecorate my blog the way I do my house. Well now, thanks to real-world friends and a teenager at FSTDT 2.0 who claimed she was half-asleep, I made a running start toward doing it this weekend! I may not even keep this background, but I kinda like it for now. I'll be fooling with it this week, probably, not to mention adding things like my Yahoo! Answers badge and my lonely little award.

Well, that's the main thing. That, and I intend to update a bit more often with shorter posts now. I'll try, anyway. I won't discuss how Tony Stewart came so frustratingly close yet *again*. (It's probably a good thing I like Kyle Busch and L'Ailee loves him.) Nor will I discuss the Penguins-Capitals game (we have six more, and they'll just have to be prepared to oppose a good Capitals goalie now.) And I certainly won't bring up how the Red Wings, and their fan on my couch, are getting frustrated by the Anaheim Ducks right now!

I'll bring the links and long paragraphs later.

Rattled and rolled

"Just because Carl irritates me doesn't mean I want him, like, dead or crippled or something."--Me, during the end of Talladega.

Male Flyers fan: "Hey, Malkin, just wondering--what does dick taste like?"
Male Penguins fan: "Like second round of the playoffs."--Friendly conversation between fans during Game 4 of the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia Stanley Cup quarterfinals, April 21

I can't believe I went more than two months without updating! This is gonna be a long one, fair warning. I wasn't blowing anyone off. Nothing major was happening to me, either. I was just very busy at work, and also had two sinus infections that required antibiotics. I am very much hoping that I didn't wear down my resistance if the swine flu and I meet, but my doctor and I both treat antibiotics as a silver bullet, so I really truly did need them when I took them. I turned 35 years old on March 11th. It was decent as far as birthdays go, but I found myself feeling old. I especially felt it the next week, when for the first time ever, I needed two teeth drilled and filled. I am definitely taking the dentist seriously about drinking less soda and using straws now!

This week has rattled my and L'Ailee's nerves! First we found out about the swine flu. Our friends who are parents are keeping their kids home from school, and my friend who is 7 months pregnant is worried, too. We're seeing a lot of face masks when we go out. We're not wearing them ourselves yet--they have struck me more as a talisman than actual protection, especially when I saw people at my favorite sports bar (more on that in a bit) removing them to drink their beer. We're just being ordinarily cautious--hand gels, Vitamin C and zinc, not shaking hands, that kind of thing. The Air Force One flyover by the Statue of Liberty had me and the rest of my office's Emergency Preparedness Committee, which I thought was a really thankless position, evacuating the office. I guess it's good to know that our e-mails and meetings and drills haven't been a total waste, but what an awful way to find out! Especially when my poor L'Ailee, who lost a good friend in 9/11, woke up screaming and crying from a nightmare that night and took forever to go back to sleep! Then this morning, right before our commute into Manhattan, the front of a fucking five-story building collapsed! Thank the Gods it was unoccupied and (so far) nobody is hurt, but it was just blocks from the old WTC site, and traffic was really snarled up.

That's yet another reason why it's wonderful that Iowa has legalized same-sex marriage and New Hampshire might. Rural life is looking really appealing to me at the moment, and L'Ailee, who loves NYC and has vowed to never live in a small isolated town again, is kind of liking the idea herself. But of course, trouble happens everywhere. I have to force myself to remember that. There's a reason why my favorite T-shirt says "Living in fear sucks!" Besides, Iowa doesn't have an ocean!

At least there's sports. Talladega is so special to me. It's a superspeedway like the one in Daytona Beach, where I grew up. I will not miss it, not ever. I even reserve a special food for it! I make the infamous Ro-Tel and Velveeta dip that tastes so good and is so bad for you. Some of my friends who watch the races at our house refer to it as "Superspeedway Dip," as I only make it for superspeedway races. Restrictor-plate racing ain't healthy, after all, so why should we be?

Speaking of, here I was envying the people who could see Talladega up close! Brad Keselowski's win defined "upset," but that's one of the things I love about Talladega--how it's really anyone's race. Carl Edwards is whining all over the media about how it needs to be safer for drivers, but he literally ran away from that wreck, almost perfectly re-enacting a scene from the movie Talladega Nights. The ones who really need to worry are the fans. Talladega's owners better have learned a lesson about fences! However, Edwards did call one of the more severely hurt fans in the hospital, a teenage girl whose jaw was wired shut. That was class. It was so weird. Just as I'd screamed, "Oh, *fuck* no!" because he went up front, and earned disapproving looks from a 13-year-old with a crush on Edwards and her mother, that wreck happened. I am not ashamed to admit that I went white. Intellectually, I know my words don't have that kind of effect, but a big crash like that makes intellect go out the window. I usually love how Fox Sports handles NASCAR, but I'm still mad that they chose not to wait around until Ryan Newman could be interviewed.

Then there's hockey. At that aforementioned sports bar, which is my favorite because I'm the one who redecorated it and it's my first-ever commercial job, there was a betting pool for the Elite Eight going into the Stanley Cup semi-finals. I won it! I totally took it all! (L'Ailee would have had a two-way split if the New Jersey Devils won.) I had people mad at me because I bet against both the Devils*and* the New York Rangers, but I won the pool! It'll be a nice trip to DC this summer if things go okay and a cushion if the after-school club where L'Ailee works her second job teaching middle-school girls gymnastics stays dead. The best was when a guy hollered, "The goddamned *interior decorator* beat us!" I haven't worked a decorating job aside from my pregnant friend's baby's new nursery, which was cost-only, for three months. So that sounded pretty sweet to me. I didn't dare tell him that I chose the Anaheim Ducks over the San Jose Sharks because I thought it'd be funny as hell if a team named the Ducks beat a team named the Sharks. Sometimes you just need to sit back and let people think you're a genius.

One change from my last entry is that the Pittsburgh Penguins went from goats to glory pretty quickly! Second round, here we come, and I'm almost as excited as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman that we're playing the Washington Capitals! That's always a good time. Watching them against their cross-state rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, is also good. L'Ailee and I had the TV on almost continuously, because she needed to watch her Detroit Red Wings walk all over the Columbus Blue Jackets, too. This is how devoted L'Ailee and her best friend A. are to their Wings: He's growing a playoff beard along with their beloved Pavel Datsyuk. He convinced L'Ailee to quit shaving her head as well. I'm sure she'll be almost able to dye and straighten her hair before she goes and shaves it again with a sigh of relief. Right now, the tiny curls and incipient white streaks in her mostly black stubble are aggravating her. She's borrowing my scarves a lot.

There was winning sports team sex to be had, and a couple times when we were tired, winning sports team making out. We watched each others' teams and cheered them on, which is pretty easy for now considering that mine's Eastern Conference and hers is Western Conference. Last Thursday, I watched the Pens give away the store to the Flyers, and howled, "I missed the Office for this?" But I kept the faith, and boy, was it rewarded! Hell yeah, it was rewarded! L'Ailee let out a couple "that was sick!"s for a couple of Crosby's goals. I was astonished at the positions that goalie/human pretzel Marc-Andre Fleury could contort himself into. She had to explain a few things to me, like why one of Evgeni Malkin's goal attempts was illegal, but I understand the game much better than I did when I first moved in with her. I don't mind when people call me a "bandwagoner" or laugh at me when I admit that I got into hockey because my spouse loves it or tell me I "smell like new Penguins jersey." I like the Pens because they're fun as hell to watch and it's cool to get in on the ground floor of something that's great and might just one day be legendary. (Plus the logo's cute. ;-) I think the NHL likes my jersey sales as much as anyone else's. It's a bit frustrating, but also amusing, when people who like hockey or their team because their daddy liked it think less of someone who wanted to know what her spouse found so interesting about those guys on the ice rink. Thanks to all the hockey fans I've encountered on Blogspot who are far more welcoming to newcomers.

Also, I am frankly amazed at the level of homophobia that the Flyers' fans heap on the Penguins and their fans. It's not like I haven't ever encountered homophobic taunting in sports. The Tony Stewart gay rumors started when guys realized that he's single and women (like me) find him sexy. Until last year, there were a lot of Stewart anti-fans who seemed certain that he and his former crew chief Greg Zippadelli were up to *something*, though they weren't quite sure which one was the pitcher and which one was the catcher. Jeff Gordon fans got a lot from Dale Earnhardt, Sr. fans back in the day. Like Sidney Crosby, he was very talented and very young and borderline pretty by his sport's standards. The rainbow paint scheme on his Dupont ride certainly didn't help. Let us also not forget the Florida college football rivalries! Gator fans still chant "FSU, FSU, where the women are women and the men are, too!"

But the Flyers' response to Malkin and, especially, Crosby is something the hell else. Seriously, those allegedly masculine straight men sure spend a lot of time thinking about what Crosby might do in bed, probably more so than the young female Pens fans in "Mrs. Crosby" jerseys. Dan Hopper, in the blog post I referenced at the top of the post, noted that at the third period of Game 4, "my mind had more or less drowned the word [fag] out by this point." The Mondesi's House blog drives the point home.. Being that I've always been female, I guess I'll never get it, but I tried. "Those guys seem to think sex with a guy is, like, the worst tragedy that can ever happen to a man," sighed A. "Of course, they are wrong." A. thought he was straight until he fell in love with his best male friend, who is now his lawfully wedded husband. Maybe I just need to reconcile myself to knowing that I never will fully understand it and that Philadelphia will never be a fun place for me to take in a hockey game.

Oh, well. Beltaine's tomorrow, and I'll be celebrating with a group tomorrow night. Slowly but surely, I am *finally* finding a group of other Pagans to celebrate with up here, and it's awesome! I hope you have a happy Beltaine if you celebrate up here, or a happy Samhain if you celebrate in the Southern Hemisphere, and a happy weekend whether you celebrate Sabbats or not!

If you can stand to do more reading, some links:

Heavy metal music in Muslim theocracies This is pretty damned cool.

Zoo Atlanta's Panda Cam is back! Every weekday from 10am to 5pm Eastern time, be less productive by checking out the antics of eight-month-old Xi Lan and his big sister, mother, and father!

Stripping through the recession

Finally, in tribute to Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty, Why the Golden Girls was sitcom genius.

Sports are supposed to distract you from bad things

What a bummer week already. The Dow went into freefall today, again. We're finding nasty new surprises in the stimulus bill. GM's begging for 30 billion dollars, and part of its pitch is, "We're gonna cut 47,000 jobs!" I thought the fucking idea was *not* to see all those jobs get cut! I thought a lot of things. I want to believe in Obama, but this is scaring me and I don't like it. If anyone's got a word of encouragement or can tell me why I'm seeing things wrong, well, I'm listening.

I was looking so forward to the Daytona 500, but what a disappointing finish! As ConnieJane observed in my comments, "Calling the race because of rain is NOT a WIN." Now, I don't begrudge Matt Kenseth, but I don't see what he was crying about. Well, I'd probably get overcome and cry if I won the lottery, so maybe that's it. Though it's been a while since I did an interior decorating job, I remember the technical language most of the contractors used on my jobs, and I used extremely technical contractor language throughout the race.

Tony Stewart's debut as a driver/owner was pretty strong, with an eighth-place finish, so I was glad to see that. He and his Stewart-Haas team run Chevys, so for their sake, I hope GM can work something out that doesn't involve slashing all those jobs. I hope Ryan Newman, his teammate/employee, gets some good equipment under him next week. Tony had to drive a backup car, but Ryan drove a backup to a backup! One nice thing about the two of them as teammates is that they have similar body types, so they don't have to change out the seats when they share cars. And, of course, Joey Logano has not yet done justice to Tony's old #20 ride.

Then there are my Pittsburgh Penguins. Apologies to Dr. Deb, who has already noted that they are having a "banner bad year," but do you know how bad the New York Islanders suck right now?

They suck like American Idol does this year.
They suck like the Dyson factory on product testing day.
They suck like those great pro-family advocates Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber doin' opposition research at the nastiest gay bar in town on Friday night, that is how much they suck!

And...they...beat...the...Penguins...yesterday! It came down to a shootout in overtime, and the Pens sent Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, the first and third best scorers in the whole NHL respectively, out to take care of business, but they managed to screw that up! Seriously, there was only one reason for them not to be completely humiliated, and it was this: they were playing with a shiny new coach. Pens fans have been criticizing Michel Therrien all year--basically, it's like he was a very average teacher trying to control a class of gifted kids. (And they are kids, too--mostly in their very early twenties.) So Therrien was yanked out Sunday. Yes, this Sunday. Yes, the day before the game, and quite late in the day, too. Dan Bylsma coached the minor league's answer to the Pens, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, until this weekend, and he was literally preparing for one of their games when he was called up.

Oh, well. As an Office fan, I have to love that the Pens are getting help from Scranton. It seems to have helped the Washington Capitals to give Bruce Boudreau, formerly the coach of the Hershey Bears, a sudden call to come to DC on Thanksgiving 2007.

I just don't want it to get to the point where the bad news going on serves to distract me from sports!

Links, links:

Now here are some fun and easy ways to go green! Check out what's being done, and can be done, in the adult entertainment industry!

Since they have Neanderthal DNA in their possession, scientists might be able to clone a Neanderthal one day. But should they? And if so, what rights should the Neanderthals have?

I've been admiring Greta Christina's stuff at AlterNet for a while, but her rebuttal of the most annoying arguments against atheists--the ones that pretty much say "Shut up, that's why"--finally made me put her on my Blogroll and comment today.

I am a Pagan, but I have good reasons for allying with atheists. One is that they are so damned cute and cuddly! I am the wife of one and the sister of another. Another is that the same people tend to hate both groups. For example, this shameful excuse for a public school teacher in Vermont.

Finally, Archie McPhee has some new reasons to let go of just a little of your money. Check out their new sarcastic "green" grocery bags and their temporary tattoos for wimps!

Love and luck

I wish you all a happy Valentine's Day, Half-Price Chocolate Day, Daytona 500 Day, and weekend!!!!

This is my favorite weekend of the year. Valentine's Day, and then the Daytona 500! For L'Ailee, there will be an extra layer of excitement, since Fashion Week officially started today. It's depressingly pared down, but hey, at least the likelihood of her catching most of the shows has increased! We have already exchanged Valentine's gifts. We both like receiving gifts at work, so we exchanged flowers and candy and had them delivered to each other's work. Red roses and a small box of handcrafted chocolates for her, bright mixed flowers and two bags of green and turquoise M&Ms that say "I love Jayelle" for me. She will pop into her gym on Saturday and be able to refresh her roses at her tiny shared cubicle. Me, I just have to hope the packet of flower freshening stuff works until Monday. But we've had good results from this florist, and there are far worse problems.

Today, L'Ailee's very best friend (call him "A" here; we haven't come up with a better nickname) and his boyfriend got married. Yes, on Friday the 13th! My mom is such a triskaidekophobe that she sometimes had my brother and I stay home from school on Friday the 13ths, and she still won't schedule anything really important for those days if she can help it. So I got a little twingey. The guys said that, as atheists, they're not superstitious. In fact, I think they liked the date better and better the more people squicked! But L'Ailee, my brother, and my SIL are also atheists, and they are, to borrow the words of the Office's Michael Scott, "a little 'stitious." They would not consider that date.

For L'Ailee's part, she was pissed that we couldn't get the day off and that they simply ran off to a town hall in Massachusetts and eloped. She wanted to go to their wedding! "But you just went to the town hall," A. said.
"We had a *wedding*. The judges in...Jayelle?"
"Invalidated it."
"Yes. We had to make it legal again. But we had a wedding! You were there!"
"I had a wedding, too. You were there!"
"To [your ex-wife]!"
"Yes, and do you remember how crazy that was? Do you remember how crazy *she* was?" Apparently she was crazy when they re-negotiated their child custody agreement, too, and that finally just got done on Monday. "I don't want another wedding, he doesn't want a wedding, we just want to be married now! We're tired of waiting!" He kissed the top of her head. "Please don't be mad at us," he pleaded.
"I won't buy you a present."
"I don't want you to buy us a present. Just let us watch the Daytona race with you on Sunday and say congratulations."
"Oh, all right."
The boys texted all their friends, including us, when they finished! They're staying in a hotel overnight for a very brief honeymoon. A. has to drive his cab on Valentine's night. It's not the way I'd do it, but then again, it's not my marriage. Today was a very lucky Friday the 13th for them, and I'm happy for them.

Love can go very badly. I am not a fan of Rihanna or Chris Brown, yet I was disturbed to hear the reason why they couldn't make the Grammy Awards. They're so young--she's 21 and he's 19. Yet he's already well on his way to being his generation's answer to Ike Turner. And, of course, any young woman with a lick of sense would want to be more like Tina, but not like this. I really pity Rihanna. She had to miss out on performances and her own 21st birthday party. She's slunk out of sight for the moment. It's as if she's being punished all over again for something that wasn't her fault. The worst part was that people who feel real fucking brave when they're behind a monitor blamed her! I like that at least MTV.com and VH1.com are linking to information on domestic violence at the end of every online article about Rihanna and Chris Brown. I really like that MTV has quickly produced a special about it, which will air on Monday.

I don't have many stories about partner abuse as it relates to my life, and thank the Gods for that. But I remember that when I was 14, my first boyfriend verbally abused me and pressured me for sex. Seventeen magazine published an article on abusive teen dating relationships and how they can set a girl up to be in an abusive marriage later in life. It saved me. The girls in it sounded so much like me. When he slapped me, I knew to walk away and never look back. My feet got turned onto a better road. I don't know what I would have done had Seventeen not published that article. I mean, I didn't think of myself as being abused, you know? Abusive relationships meant, you know, housewives with a bunch of kids and not much education. It meant Farrah Fawcett in the Burning Bed. I was a teenager, I was smart, I wouldn't ever let a man treat me like that. Except I was starting to let a boy treat me like that. Shame and denial are powerful things.

A girl today probably sees a dumpy woman crying on Maury Povich or yelling on Cops or fighting some other woman on Jerry Springer, and *that's* what an abusive relationship looks like to her. Then she watches what has passed for "romances" on Heroes--a show I otherwise really like. (To name one particularly heinous example, West the flying stalker, who hassled Claire the damn-near-indestructable ex-cheerleader during Chapter 2. I really hoped a hunter would shoot him down.) Or she reads the Twilight series, where twoo luv apparently means sabotaging a girl's truck and watching her while she sleeps. My intern girls say they don't really want an Edward or a West in their lives, and I know my 23-year-old sister-in-law doesn't, either. (My brother would act very differently if she did!) I know I read questionable stuff about relationships when I was younger, like VC Andrews' oeuvre, including the stuff she "wrote" after she was dead. But I hoped girls today got a little bit better information, too. I hoped they would learn someplace where love ends and control begins. Well, now they're learning.

I wish they'd have learned from a novel instead.

Links, links:

Carie shared the wonderful story about Sam the koala, who escaped the Australian bushfires with the help of firefighter David Tree. But Sam has since found love, with another koala who was burned and displaced! Read about the cute koo-wa-wa couple here! (Yeah, I know. That's how I pronounced it!)

Hindu fundamentalists--and there really isn't another good term for them--have been attacking Indian women for going to bars and threatening couples who celebrate the "un-Indian" holiday of Valentine's Day. Nisha Susan decided she'd had enough. She organized a Facebook group of "Pub-Going, Loose, and Forward Women" to send the self-appointed "moral police" piles of pink panties for Valentine's Day! I *love* this!

The really awesome news: Ezra Temko, a 23-year-old city councilman in Newark, Delaware (I know!), came out as a bisexual man with a boyfriend, after working very hard on gender identity and sexual orientation addendums to their anti-discrimination laws. The bad news? Towleroad's write-up attracted gay biphobes. See who's far more of an asset to the gay community at the link.

Scary cases regarding the right to freely link to other sites. Bet you can guess why I paid attention!

Finally, the new Office Depot Racing site opened today! GOOOOO, TONY! MAKE THIS YOUR YEAR!

Stupid Red Wings!

Guess I should've let the Detroit Red Wings know L'Ailee and her best friend were coming from way far away to watch them, because the bastards didn't come through for them. I wore one of her best friend's old away Wings jerseys, too. It practically itched and burned on me. 4-2 win for the Capitals! It was a good game and all, but I still sort of wish I could have given them a better outcome.

Of course, if I had that kind of magick, Stewart-Haas Racing would totally dominate NASCAR next year and the Penguins would have won tonight.