It's "one day" and we're older now.

I have been right on the brink of tears all day. L'Ailee has been at the brink of violence. I cry and write, she grabs a punching bag or a willing sparring partner. Her buddy's going to be extremely well-tenderized tonight, I'm sure.

What a hell of a way to avoid planning a wedding. It wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what L'Ailee wanted. We thought, "Why wouldn't they rule for our side?" We knew in our hearts not to get too complacent. And once again, the heart had it right. You can read the NYS Supreme Court decision here.

I feel so burnt-out and angry. What the hell do they think we're going to do--slink meekly back to our closets or their "ministries", apologizing abjectly for all the trouble we've caused everybody? When someone wants really badly for me or L'Ailee to do something, they decide for us. They make us run screaming the other way. Tomorrow we're going to finally put in our legal paperwork and get hyphenated. The squabbles over whose goes first are over. We're going to show how we feel and what we are to the fullest extent that we can!!!

I'm so tired of having legal marriage jerked out from under us. Just so, so, so very tired. We've been waiting since we were in our late teens, expecting it just any day now, to have that option one day, when we're older. Today is "one day" and we are older, but society still keeps dangling it an inch out of our reach. Maybe we'll be as old as Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, those octagenarians who finally got married in San Francisco in 2004 and then had it taken away as fast as they got it, before we're legal.

I'm just so tired of "because God says so and the Bible says so." It's all fundamentally, "because *I* say so." And I don't think any of us are any better or worse than another. Nor are our interpretations of Deity. The point of a free society is that all citizens are equal unless they hurt another citizen, isn't it? And I haven't hurt another citizen, at least not intentionally. L'Ailee hasn't, either. We've been hurt, by "pro-family" wacktivists who are now exulting over the fact that New York and Georgia are safe from wedding cakes with two brides on top and, more seriously, same-gender partners who can properly care for each other. We've been hurt. We're being hurt.

How do you read it as anything other than bigotry? How?! If, when the two roads diverged in my yellow wood a few years back, I had taken Ex-Boy, I'd have married without a problem. But I took a path on which I am equated with children and the mentally retarded--only capable of a play marriage, with no real binding legal rights. Isn't that something? I'm not any different. I'm not any worse. I'm just treated different. I'm just treated worse. The same wastes of carbon who say our marriages would destabilize society or whatever other lame excuse they're trotting out certainly don't mind treating us like full citizens during tax time!

Justice Robert Smith said there needed to be an "inducement" for mixed-gender couples to stay together in his opinion today. Tell me truly, straight readers--do any of y'all really need legal inequality for others in order to stay together? Or is it just the bigots who are that insecure in their marriages?

I'd have done a victory lap and a rebel yell today. I can't understand the mindstate of someone who would do that because someone else couldn't get married, because someone else's plans are ruined, because someone else is on shaky legal ground. Today Mat Staver and all his people at the so-called Liberty Counsel, who are from my hometown, are going to Orlando to celebrate. How can they be proud of themselves? I mean, we've all disapproved of another's marriage, but why can't mine happen, and why do we have to live by their beliefs, when no straight person has to put up with that?

I'm not thinking, just feeling, and feeling really horrible. I'm sorry. I know there are other issues in the world. That crazy summabitch in North Korea just might get us all killed, and everybody else is too busy arguing to help that. And there was a train derailment in the NYC area today. That was a bad day for them. But I can own that we've had a bad day, too, I think.

Right before the decision today, I watched Mei Xiang and Tai Shan in their panda house. Mei Xiang was upset because the keepers wouldn't let her out. (There was lightning outside. Yes, they'd have dealt with it in the wild, but the zoo's supposed to be protected.) She looked so gloomy, the poor thing! So her cute little son toddled up to her, nuzzled her, used all the strength in his 55-pound body to push her up, then rolled over onto his back to expose his soft little white belly for her. I could certainly use some of that. I'll have to settle for the cats, and a hard little white belly attached to someone who I am only married to in our minds now. I hope that's enough for now.