Jackass Moment

I was just stuffing a UPS envelope full of thick calendars and I gave myself a papercut in the web between my pointer and middle fingers.

OWW.

Chopper Bob Fridays

Curve.

The Big Apple

Tomorrow we head to NYC for a few days. I'm looking forward to it, though last time I was there for any significant amount of time was when I was a senior in high school, and those aren't the best memories. I mean, we had a great time, but I prefer to ignore my senior year of high school: I was ready to leave school so badly and my eagerness didn't allow me to pause long enough to take in the enjoyable things of senior year. Oh wait. Were there any?

I have to work each day I'm there, but there will be time for us to explore. We have plans to go to the seaport, possibly visit the World Trade Center site, The Gates, and take in a Broadway show. I like traveling with my girl, and it will be fun to be in a city, since we usually high tail it to some podunk middle of nowhere kind of a place. I'm sure I'll have my fill of subways, stink, and crowds by the time we get back.

We shall also see Marie and Sarah while we're there, which is so exciting because they just announced that they were registered as Domestic Partners in NYC. It's a wonderful thing, and I am really excited for them. T will visit with friends while we're there, and we will spend some time with T's parents both going into and leaving the city.

I'm outtie for a few days. Enjoy yourselves, and stay warm!

Image: The Bub

My favorite Bub.

American Idle

The other day on American Idol, one of the male contestants sang a song with the following lyrics:

I can hardly say stop
I can't say love
I can't say _f_i_l_l_i_n_t_h_e_b_l_a_n_k

But instead of saying "say" he was saying "shay" at which point I began to resing his song over him with the following:

I can hardly shay say
I can't shay love

But then I realized it's even more complicated. It actually should be:

I can hardly shay shay
I can't shay love

And then I realized that the American Idol male contestants kind of suck this season, and I didn't really care. I know, I'm a genius. Especially for admitting on the internet that I, um, watch American Idol. And then further admitting that I've watched enough American Idol to compare between seasons. Shutting up now.

Image: T

I love you.

Pop

I am reclaiming my heritage. By this, I do not mean the obvious. I already embrace my Vietnamese-ness, my New York-ness, my femaleness. I am reclaiming pop. That's right: POP.

When I got to college I used to "pop" this and "pop" that, and people looked at me like I had three heads. Finally, after a short time, I realized that while I said "pop" to mean soda pop, everyone here said, "soda." Boring. So, I assimilated, and bitterly so, because these picky people who "soda-ed" left and right were the same folks who said ARM like aahm and ASIA like ayeszure.

This past weekend visiting with my family rejuvenated my interest in POP. It's part of my family's language. It connects me with them. It connects me with where I'm from, and to those whom I love who still live there.

So, pahk yeh cahh whehevah yah whahnt. I'm going to have POP whenever I want.

Chopper Bob Fridays, too!

One of these things is not like the other...

My ode to Chuck Fridays!

Frog-o-later.

A Closet the size of Texas

When I came out to my parents almost three years ago, I couldn't imagine the freedom that doing so would allow me. The person I am today did not exist before I came out of the closet, but instead was hidden by a defensive, depressed, and self-damning person who never felt like her love was worth another person's time. I loved immensely, and I was loved immensely, but the deepest parts of my person could not feel that love that I had chosen to shut out -- the kind of love that you only feel when you risk and trust and jump, all at the same time. It's the kind of love I shunned others for being able to feel, the kind of abandon I wasn't sure was possible, the kind of boundlessness I yearned for, but rejected.

Coming out has allowed me to love more wholly and to see love in others differently. In T I have found the person who supports me endlessly, loves me vivaciously, and challenges me to explore all parts of my thoughts and feelings. She honors me with her love and trust and truth, and I have learned to honor hers and others because of it.

In part, I have been able to open myself to this experience because of the national and state conversation about gay marriage. All romanticizing aside, this conversation has, at its base, prepped the average American to have a sensitive and informed conversation about my rights, leaving some of the impossible work to be done by those who can handle it in a more removed way. I will admit, after T and I were married, every time I saw some crazed anti-gay crusader on tv, I burst into tears. It was draining and damaging to see the validity of my life debated on tv every night. All day long. Hour after hour. Over and over and over again. And then again.

But at least now the scene is set, and those who resisted confronting this issue before now have no choice. I am supported by my family, my friends, mycommunity, my city, my state, its legislature and its court.

Since I came out to my parents, I have not yet been in a situation when I was fully closeted. Next month, T and I go to Texas, and we have already discussed our disguise. It makes me profoundly sad to have to say this, but I will be in places in Texas where I will fear for my safety as an out lesbian. I cringe to think about W's recent speech about being a beacon of freedom abroad, and that, in doing so, we must not embed the seeds of discrimination at home. Included in this speech he talked of promoting heterosexual marriage above gay marriage, of his own model of "morality" and "family values" as superior to my own. He preached hellfire and brimstone to scare those Christian fundamentalists into using their shared faith in God and Jesus to spew HATRED.

Recently at church we discussed this fundamentalism. During the message, our reverand quoted St. Augustine to say, "If you are reading the Bible and the message of God and you find hatred, read it again. And if you read it again and find hatred, you must read it again. God is Love." We all carry the charge presented to us, whatever it is that we believe in. Do not be fooled that this struggle is over, or that we can slink by, shirking our responsibilities. I have been changed by the actions of a few individuals, and I know that each one of us is capable of the same change in this world. I know this. I believe it. I have to.

Image: The spirit statue

Some people tell me they think this image is scary, but it reminds me of one of the happiest weeks of my life. I love the light, the blue-toned mountains in the back, and the feeling of waiting the figure evokes.

Image: Province Lands Beach

Ever wish you were somewhere else?

Dunka Dunka Dunka Dstupid

Games we play

I have a growing obsession with FUTURAMA, which I discovered is one of the most brilliant shows ever made. Ever. To fully utilize our TiVo, I decided to Season Pass request any Futurama episodes on TV. Boy did I hit paydirt. They play on the Cartoon Network in the middle of the night, and our TiVo registry is becoming quickly filled with episodes.

The other day T and I watched the episode when the gang wins the SLURM factory tour and a party with Slurm Mackenzie, but during the course of the tour discover the nasty secrets behind the origins of Slurm. And believe me, if you haven't seen it, you would never realize that a simple cartoon drawing could gross you out SO MUCH. The factory is basically a spin off of the chocolate factory from Willy Wonka, including spin offs of ooompa loompas. The oompa loompas are basically slaves to the Slurm master, as is Slum Mackenzie. During the riverboat portion of the tour, the ooompas sing these TERRIBLE, terrible songs, all of which start:

Dunka dunka dunka de______

And end with some message or lesson. For example:

Dunka dunka dunka dasis
The secret ingredient's on a need to know basis

So, of course this means that ALL WEEK, since T and I saw this episode again, we've been singing everything in the dunka dunka format. And I mean everything:

Dunka dunka dunka desupper
What would you like
tonight for supper?

Who said being married couldn't be fun?

I mean:

Dunka dunka dunka dedun
who said being married
couldn't be fun?

This ain't yo momma's Nintendo

T and I have decided that there was never a possibility of us being married to anyone else ever, mainly because of the bizarre-ass games we play with each other -- games that would surely annoy anyone else within a five mile radius. These games can be played anywhere: the car, the living room, while cooking dinner, sitting on the pot. It doesn't matter. Games can include actual dancing, singing, weird guessing games, facial expressions, bodily noises. The best games include all five features! I'm convinced everyone does this with their partners, and I am exposing the secret here.

From time to time, I will post a Games We Play feature that lists the most recent game we've played. You can laugh, but you know you do it, too.

My mother, the crazypants

So, my parents are coming this weekend. They both have Monday off and decided to take a trip, and since they haven't been here since the wedding, since JULY, they decided to make the trip here.

There are some factors to consider. (1) my uncle, his wife, and their daughter just moved to within an hour of our house and (2) there has not been a single long weekend in nine months* that my mother has not been in Rochester. You see Rochester is where my sister lives, and Rochester is where my brother in law lives, and therefore, Rochester is where The Golden Boy of all Golden Boys lives.

*Golden Boy is almost precisely nine months old.

Don't get me wrong. My mother loves me and my sister and my brother in law and my wife and my father and everyone else. She loves us well, and she has been an amazing mother and has been well-accomplished in her life. HOWEVER, nothing that has ever crossed her path has been so magnetizing as Golden Boy. This means the obvious: she forgets about her children, she takes SICK DAYS from work to visit him (gasp!), and she takes every opportunity to drive my sister and brotherinlaw insane by visiting ALL THE TIME. Sister has taken to calling her, "Grandmonster."

So on this fancy little trip my parents are taking, they intend to arrive at our house Friday evening. Saturday we'll travel together a little further and visit with my uncle. On Sunday, they will turn around and head home, leaving early enough to make it to Golden Boy's palace before dark to spend the night.

I appreciate that he brings them great joy and love, but lordy people, I drove home ELEVEN times last year. You'd think they could stay that one extra day to visit with us. Maybe when they get here, there will be a sign on the door that says, "Welcome to the Hotel Milk and Honey" and I'll ask them for sixty bucks on their way out.

Crap in pink and red boxes

I remember when I was younger seeing The Real World: London and Neil's alternative girlfriend sent Neil a pig's heart wrapped in barbed wire to his house. Neil, who suffered many ills that season, including having his tongue bitten off by a stranger at a punk show, was thrown by this gift.

Each year after Christmas shopping is over I remark at the speed at which stores whip out their new crop of this year's Valentine's crap. And it really is that: CRAP. C. R. A. P. As someone who hates knickknacks, I always wonder what it is the person intends to do with that plastic heart vase/candy dispenser or that cupid shooting a chocolate arrow. CRAP. And buying it for your loved one does NOT MEAN YOU LOVE THEM.

In an effort to avoid the commercialism of Valentine's Day, T and I decided to cook a meal for one another -- a surprise meal that exceeds the normal level of elaboration. The meals were perfect, and I'm glad we decided to not go out and get dinner. This was affirmed this afternoon when I went to Stop and Shop to grab lunch, and I walked through the aisle with cards, balloons, and candy. There were dozens of men there, and I mean DOZENS, scrambling for that last piece of crap on the shelf, crap that should probably have been left there anyway. I'm not sure what they intend to tell their wives when they brought home their supermarket finds, but it may be something along the lines of, "Hi, honey. I love you, so I got you this red box with pink crap in it."

I don't know about you, but I think I would prefer a pig's heart, wrapped with barbed wire.

From Saigon to Springfield...

Well, not exactly Springfield, but you know...I need that illiteration thing happening for me. I guess I'm not really from Saigon, either, so I suppose, like Santa, I sit on a throne of lies. The letters of Santa do spell SATAN when reordered, you know.

So, this is my first post. It won't be elaborate, because I'm just trying it out. I'll have to do some homework tonight on other blogs so I can check out some ideas...

Peace out, internet. I know that there are at least three of you who are reading this!