LNews: Extempore

Good Riddance

2009-03-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

My father’s dead.

Three tiny words that add up to nearly four decades of disappointment starting with “you were your mother’s idea, I just signed the paperwork”. I don’t remember when he told me that, but I do recall it was about then that I stopped caring about the annual week-long visit to him and his latest girlfriend, probably circa 1987.

I did try, at the end. A few months ago, I went home to see him. I got to spend three hours with him and his bitch of a wife. Instead of having a nice, restful time to remember the few peaceful moments we’d had over 38 years, she spent the entire time reviling me because of “Liberals are ruining this country, abortionists are killing black babies, and I HEART SARAH PALIN therefore you suck!” Don’t ask, it’s the most logical she’s ever been.

It wasn’t a lot of fun. At that point, I decided I wasn’t going back again. I didn’t, either. I made one more stab at connection when his CaringBridge page went up during the final hospitalization. Being truthful to myself, I simply posted good wishes and admitted I really didn’t have memories to share.

Because I don’t. I have one positive memory of him on the closing night of the musical my junior year, he showed up with roses. That was it. He didn’t attend my high school graduation, nor my college graduation. I never got a birthday or Christmas card from him post my parents divorce. That may be fine when your parents divorce when you are an adult, but I was seven.

Every other moment I could have had with him was spent with the bitch he married who never liked any of his family. She’s one of those people who will say she loves you with all her heart as she hugs you, and as soon as the door closes will turn around and say, “Whew, do I hate her.” Her response to my post was “Yes, you do have memories now post them or I shall guilt you again.”

Here’s my memory. I did gain some insight from that last meeting. Watching her intrude for the umpteenth time I realized he was a weak man and a terrible father. He had no center, making it easy for her to invade his hollowness and push out anything that might have been allowed to grow there. For someone who loved gardening, he was afflicted with a sandy, acidic soul that inhibited life and love.

I looked at his huge house, that looked very much like a model home. A beige house, interior in shades of beige, even the new remodeling looked empty. There were almost no books, no evidence of hobbies. Even his gardening was now reduced to a quarter-acre plot surrounding the house and some potted geraniums on the deck.

When he was married to my mother, we had acres of strawberries and a huge kitchen garden, not to mention the five greenhouses where he plied his green thumb. According to my brother’s eulogy, it was Eden and Dad was God. The only Dad I ever knew was a sarcastic, spiteful chain-smoker who had long since forgotten what a day in the Garden felt like.

There was a man who taught me to load shotgun shells. There was a man who stomped and roared about how much he hated cats…until I found him murmuring endearments to a tiny ball of fluff in his lap. There was a man who took in his relatives’ kids and fathered them as well as he could, meanwhile being an excellent father to his own children. There was a man who taught me right from wrong by example, not decibel level. There was a man who cried when he was sad, and laughed when he was happy, believed in his God and believed more in his wife.

He taught me to fish, which is easy, and how to remove the hook from the fish, which isn’t. He taught me getting up early has its rewards, and that sometimes the only reward of ice fishing is, well, ice fishing.

He wasn’t my dad, though. He was my uncle. If there was ever a man who the vast majority of things a dad should do for a youngster, it was my father’s brother.

I’m not going to miss my father much, it’s hard to miss someone you never knew, because they never cared to make themselves known. I’m quite relieved that he’s not out bragging to his golfing buddies about his daughters’ achievements anymore, because he had nothing to do with those outcomes, and in my case, significantly set back my graduation by several years. I had always planned to forgive him once I paid off my student loans. Now I don’t feel obligated to forgive, which is another relief. It wouldn’t have mattered to him either way, anyway. Whatever he did was the right thing and whatever I did was the wrong thing and I’m okay with that influence being gone from the world.

I’ve also gotten a world of shit from many of my family members for simply being truthful about my experience. Which, to be fair, they have always made a concerted effort to deny. I guess they learned something from Dad after all. “Make sure badphairy feels unloved, unsupported, and out of place” will most likely be his legacy, from my oldest brother for sure. Apparently, I should be eternally grateful for all that fathering he did before I was ever born.

I didn’t go home for the funeral, I wasn’t told when it would be until after the fact, in case I might show up. Yes, I’m feeling the love, aren’t you? Yet my “family” wonders why I don’t seem to like them very much.

I am grateful that this is very nearly the end. All my grandparents are dead now. My father is dead and my mother is in good health. Most of the adults are married, most of the rest are small children. There will be no weddings or funerals for a long time. Hopefully long enough for me to forget them as thoroughly as they wish to forget me. It’s the only equality we can offer each other, now.

I’m single and childless because I think family is overrated. Now you know why.

Packrat-itis? Bug or Feature?

2008-12-09T17:19:00.000-08:00

By Badphairy

I'm both a pack rat and a slob. I'm aware of this. It comes from two places in my psyche, the one that never wants to get up and find anything, because if I keep everything in heaps on my couch and bed, 50% of what I want will be within arm's reach no matter where I am.

The other I like to call “what if I'll find a use for that later.” It's a bear to tame, let me tell you.

I have this friend, Alia S., who is a craftsperson. You can tell by looking at her hands. She has big-knuckled capable hands that can doctor a sick cat or push needles through leather without a thimble. True story, actually. I was sewing a sporran and managed to put the three-sided business end of a leather needle through (yes, all the way) my left index finger. I was not so happy to attempt this again, once bandaged and appropriately anesthetized (beer).

Alia took up my project and rolled her eyes when I proffered the suede thimble whose pad I'd been using on my right thumb to push the needle through without likewise impaling it.

She sewed ¾ of the damn thing in the time it had taken me to sew the other ¼ not counting my Vlad the Seamstress moment.

Point of the story being, she rocks not only the house, but several houses to either side. She had given me, some seven years ago, a set of little glass vials wrapped in wire so as to facilitate their being hung on a wall. I'd moved the damn things probably five times and they currently resided in a heap at the bottom of a drawer.

They were “things I might find a use for, later.”

Having returned to the Evil empire for my yearly visit, I drove far above the speed limit (did I say that out loud) to see my friend Ann Onymous in her sunny, cheerful, gated borough of horror.

No, really. It's a freaking castle: spiraling tower staircase and all, behind a gate guarded by a “Bates Motel” sign and a vicious grizzly bear (of the carved, wooden variety).

Far more vicious are the llama, sheep, and well, that's about it as far as vicious goes, except for Ann. Strolling around a large owl and hawk-proof pen on Ann's property are several birds of the pea- persuasion.

Due to Ann's unfailing generosity, I smuggled home a double fistful of iridescent feathers, now fanning out of the little jars Alia made, and hung appealingly on the wall.

Seven years of toting those things around and I do eventually find a very good use for them.

So, I may be a pack rat, but is it a bug or a feature?

Goodbye, My Lai

2008-04-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

I really really hate this. But I can’t deny it any longer.

We’ve been to the vet, we have hundreds of dollars of meds. We have a new litter box and a case of canned food, because dry is often too hard for her to eat anymore. We have a new liner under the box, to catch the ever-more-frequent “misses”.

None of that has dispelled the new, vague, and bewildered look in her eyes or the tooth-grinding evidence of her constant pain. The meds don’t do any good if she can’t keep them down. There aren’t any more options.

It’s been almost seventeen years that she has been my commensal, companion. P ick a label: my cat, My Lai. All the things you hear parents say at their kids’ graduation, “I remember when she was so tiny, I’m so proud, she’s become a friend” apply. Except this kid isn’t going off to college or getting married. Her ability to give me grandchildren was removed long ago.

I settled for her ability to purr me through anything. Her famous irritability and penchant for swiping at me when she got tired of being petted. The way her growl would rise in intensity and pitch if I held her tight and rubbed her stomach, which she detested. The night Amanda and I were up all night talking and My Lai crawled into a pillowcase, burrowing under the pillow in it, in a blatant attempt to demonstrate exactly what we were preventing her from doing.

Ever since Tahoe, it’s been us against the world. Now it will be just me, and I’m not sure how well I’m going to be dealing with that.

On Friday, I’m taking the day off. I’m renting a car and taking My Lai to the beach. She won’t have to worry about the location of the litter box. She can lie carefree in the sunshine for the last time.

And then we’ll get back in the car and go to the vet. I’ll hold her as they gently slide in the needle, and I’ll feel first the purring, then the breathing, then her heart stop.

The end of the tiny kitten I had to feed with an eyedropper. The end of half my life. The best end I can give her.

Right now she’s sitting quietly on my bed, staring into space waiting for the pain to go away. It’s going to go away. I’m going to make it go away. It’s my responsibility.

I just wish I could explain. I wish I could tell her I’m sorry she’s lived in nothing but my succession of craptastic apartments. I wish I could tell her how much she’s meant to me. Actually I can and do tell her that, I’m just not sure she understands.

So, on Friday, she will get sunshine and cuddles and scratches and love.

And then she will get relief.

It Also Rolls Downhill

2008-04-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

When San Francisco protests, they do it right. In a somewhat sideways answer to Protest Zones (which should be renamed Police Brutality Zones), and Designated Free Speech Areas (hey Pelosi, who put the moron in your oxy?), or even you know, protesting on the actual day the protestable action (or significant anniversary/escalation/what have you) will take place, protestors for freedom in Tibet climbed the guy wires on the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl banners.

Yesterday. The torch run is tomorrow. Talk about planning ahead. The era of blond-dreadlocked, bitchy radicals scheming about rally chants till midnight while chain-smoking has been replaced, apparently, by dreadlocked, bitchy radicals scheming at 3:00 am about the best quality jumars, carabiners, and gorp. Frankly, in the struggle of worker and proletariat, REI seems to be winning. I’m not sure who’s going to be happy about that, but I do know the tobacco companies hate it.

Seems like Cal is serving its purpose in training the next generation of protestors for Bay Area success, as tree-sitting is still going on over at the Cal campus across the Bay. In case you have nostalgic memories of pole-sitters or your family treehouse, know now and tremble with fear paltry non-Californians, that tree-sitting is a skill (or set thereof), involving possible use of zip lines, hanging tents, and shit buckets. Yes, shit buckets. What do you think people spend hours and hours packing down from camps on Mount Everest? Yep, shit buckets.

We’ve been shown thrilling expanses of snow, dangerous cliffs, people slowly freezing to death, but no shit buckets. Never thought of Mount Everest as a giant Potemkin village? Do it now.

SF is a community infinitely familiar with shit buckets, though we like to call them “parks”, “bus stops” and “doorways”. Predictably, any city with that much poo, is also rife with the flinging of same, though we like to call it “politics”. Thus we have protest factions who don’t even have to protest on the day of the torch run. We are so dressed in blinding Tyvek that any poo flung within a month or so of an event, ends up staining our brothas fines .

Even so, poo is fertilizer, kids, and here we have one of the most vibrant discussions about China, Tibet, the message of the Olympic Games, the power of sport, the thrill of victory, etc, etc, etc. Without that discussion, this would just be American Gladiators with a bigger budget.

Yes, sports are important, human rights are important, global opinion is important, and we deserve to care more than every two to four years. Remember that when your hear bitching about stupid protestors who need to go get jobs. Those people do have jobs. They’re carrying the shit buckets down the mountain and making sure they are displayed for all to see. Maybe we’ll send less shit up the mountain tomorrow.

At least, that’s the hope.

Sprig Has Sprug

2008-03-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

I awoke at 3:30 a-ebb out of dreabs I was drowding. Scary, but dot teddibly udusual. It’s sprig. *blows nose again*
Yes, I’m aware it’s only early March, but here in a Mediterranean climate, it’s definitely spring. What bees are left in California are buzzing anemically around the almond groves, and the jade plants are threatening to bloom any second now.
It’s still monsoon season, but it’s been sunny all week. Predictably, the sun is supposed to leave us on Sunday, just in time for the filming of the Gay Freedom Day Parade of 1978 for the upcoming film “Milk”.
If you’re not aware, Harvey Milk was, "the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet" according to Time magazine. Also known as the Mayor of Castro Street, Milk was an icon of not just SF, but gays nationwide.
He and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by disgruntled (who is gruntled?) recently resigned City Supervisor Dan White an ex-cop/firefighter, and. There are also some as-yet-unplumbed ties with the People’s Temple, which would spectacularly implode with the suicides of most of its members in Jonestown, Guyana ten days later.
Altogether, a fascinating time to be a San Franciscan. At the time, I was an eight-year-old Minnesotan with no more idea of gaydom than I did of California, that is, none whatsoever.
I had no idea that a somber candlelit memorial vigil spontaneously assembled itself and wound through the Castro and down to City Hall, where many remembered Harvey including Joan Baez.
Much like Benazir Bhutto, Supervisor Milk was aware of the danger his celebrity posed, and recorded words to be played only in the event of his assassination (listen here- http://www.archive.org/details/ssfHarveym1). It includes the quote, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” Bless you, sir, for as the doors aren’t completely down, they’re louvered doors made of shoddy plywood now, rather than the hermetically sealed, hydraulically locked fortress portals they were when Milk first ran for office.
So I have pledged to get up at 6 am on Sunday morning to commute to Civic Center Plaza to pay homage to the ultimate sacrifice Mr. Milk made for his city/county and his fellow friends of Dorothy. We will gather on the Polk street side of the plaza and re-enact the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade for producer Gus Van Sant.
Spring is a time of hope, and in June 1978 San Francisco was full of hope for the future of equality in America, unaware of the looming tragedies of the following November. We owe it to him and to all of us to make the best version of this film possible. It’s not history or herstory, it’s ourstory and we will tell it. May you rest in peace Mr. Milk. We’ll take it from here.

Living in America

2008-02-18T16:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes living in America is something I could do without. I was riding BART home last night, when some old, white, half-toothless guy opened by telling me he voted for Obama. When I didn’t immediately scream “Me too!”, hug him, buy him dinner and fuck him doggy-style, he looked confused.

“Didn’t you vote?” Of course I did and I told him so. He still couldn’t grok that I hadn’t voted for GOBAMA.

My brother called me the other night to bait me by saying over and over again, “How come you didn’t work hard enough on getting out the Obama vote?” I’ve never thought “Let’s antagonize women for fun” was a terribly amusing game, and I still don’t.

The old BART passenger, who will hereafter be called Mr. Fundypants, continues his (inexpert and actual content-free) hagiography of the senator from IL. I told him at that point that I didn’t listen to people talking about God, nor was I interested in his evangelizing.

That shut him up for about two minutes. He then began the next onslaught with “I believe the abortions issue is the most important thing, and we need to get rid of it as a wedge issue by making it illegal so we can move on.”

I retorted that only a man could think he had “moved on”, and that if making things illegal worked to move us on, then alcohol would still be illegal.

Mr. Fundypants continued to exhibit incredibly poor rhetorical, not to mention logical skills, and I parried each one as is my wont. With each successful sally I made countering him, he became visibly more agitated.

I have had this same situation lately at a website I frequented. For some reason, men seem to think that if they lay out all their “arguments” and I’m still not convinced, well, then I’m stupid, venal, mean, or wrongheaded, not actually deserving of my own opinion.

I’m fairly tired of it. I’ve seen someone scream at me telling me my support of affirmative action is racist, sexist and bigoted, but when a white male says he supports the exact same program, well, it’s just his opinion so that’s okay.

Yet when this discrepancy is pointed out as being racist, sexist, and bigoted in its own right (b/c it implies that the only acceptable support for programs like AA must come from white males) there’s no further discussion, just an outbreak of OMGYOUDIDNTJUST CALLMEARACISTBLAAAGAAAARRRGHHHHH!!!

This is what passes for “discussion” among the young white males. Sort of disproves that whole “master race” theory, doesn’t it?

Basically, many young white males truly believe that because they aren’t called or calling someone else “nigger” on a regular basis, that there’s no racism. Because they can buy houses and get jobs, everyone who doesn’t look like them can, too.

Sort of like my family, who thought that my living in their house would make me “white enough” News flash: it didn’t.

These are the people who whine about Historically Black Colleges and Universities because they think they’re “black only”. They’re not, of course, and white students qualify for those AA (Affirmative Action) scholarships because in that context, they’re the “minorities”. But let’s not let sanity intrude, shall we? It’s just exemplary of the lengths people will go to justify their bigotry while claiming to be “colorblind”.

Back on BART, Mr. Fundypants has taken to looking at me like a puppy he expected to lick him that is contentedly chewing on his oozing neck-stump. He finally put up his hands and said, “Could you please just not talk about abortion anymore?”

Reminding him that he brought it up over my strenuous objections, I smiled sadly and said, “You first”.

Moments Worth Preserving

2008-01-28T18:07:00.000-08:00

By Badphairy

I want to bronze this moment. My brother (the second eldest) is gloating about Hillary’s primary loss in “the whitest state in America” (Iowa). This is de rigeur in my family. However, I’m hearing “Go BarackO” in my ear. From my brother. The Marine. The lifelong Republican voter. He’s “voting for change” as I peel my jaw off the floor.

I’m not really sure how to take this. I’m not sure who I’m voting for, but I never thought I’d be discussing an election like this in my lifetime.

By the way, I am vaguely sickened by the way the media keeps portraying this as “the woman vs. the black” as if there is nothing to them but their labels. On this particular day, should we not be assessing candidates by the contents of their characters, not the color of their skin or the presence (or absence) of meat curtains?

Back to my brother, I’m just feeling weirded out by his support for Obama. It’s not as though I haven’t spent years attempting to convince the male members of my family that voting Republican didn’t necessarily float all boats equally. I got the standard WASP reply, i.e. ”I don’t actually care about other people’s boats. I care about my boat. Now STFU and scrub my floor”.

We did go on to scream at each other until we agreed that HillDawg can’t be BarackO’s Veep because it would lose him the support of cross-voting conservatives. He assured me there are some. I’d like pictures, names, and addresses, please.

I was interested primarily because I’ve rarely been able to have conversations like this in my family. Most of my family can’t or won’t “discuss.” They just scream loudest about how great the Republicans are and then retreat into pissy butthurtitude. In fact, I told one of them the housing bubble wouldn’t last and to prepare for the coming downturn, three years ago.

Not only didn’t he listen, I’m sure that now he would conveniently have no memory of said conversation. After all, what do Democrat commies understand about economics? I never thought my brother would be any different. Yet, here I am honestly inquiring what it is about BarackO that fires him up so.

I never really got an answer in that conversation. But he called me back. He said Americans are so complacent about their privileges that it sickened him. He’s seen fourteen year old girls in Asia selling themselves to his buddies to put rice on the family table, while we get all freaked out that our fourteen year olds aren’t doing enough extra credit to impress the Princeton Admissions Dept.

I may not agree with him about everything, but it’s damned hard to disagree with that. Maybe it’s time to put someone in power who understands that.

Who Let HillDawg Out?

2007-11-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

I realize that Barack Obama is a personable man, an educated and gifted orator, and one of the few dedicated AND so-far-honest pols America has produced. Yes, we should get down and kiss the boots he pulled up himself with by their well-worn bootstraps.

But I gotta give a shout out to the HillDawg’s press secretary/speechwriters for the punchlines she was delivering during the last debate. “This pantsuit is asbestos” and the very best “They aren’t attacking me because I’m a woman, they’re attacking me because I’m ahead”. I think Bill wrote that one.

I didn’t get to see it of course, because I don’t have cable. IMHO, there’s something very wrong about restricting the electoral process to those who can afford the monthly bill from your choice of craptastic cable giants. It would be different if there were a “good” company, but all I have noticed is that perhaps one of them sucks slightly less than gravity. But I digress.

I know, I know, I’ve heard it all. She’s too corporate, she’s a liar, we don’t need a dynasty (she’s the son of which hereditary king, again?), she’s more of the same.

You know what? I remember what “the same” was when her hubby was in power. “The same” meant raising taxes to….pay our bills! What a thought! Fiscal conservatism from a Democrat, and frankly the only fiscal conservatism we’ve had for the last 16 years.

Let’s dust off Ronald Reagan’s (anybody remember him?) famous question, “Are you better off than you were ten years ago?” Did you cringe? Think HARD about that.

Rather than whining and playing the feminazi card, she got down in the mud with her pink Tonka truck and moved some dirt. Her timing was impeccable, her delivery was on the mark, and the applause, cheers and laughter were well deserved.

She is standing under the door marked DNC Leader over which is poised a tipping bucket of D-challenger mud; there are several slings hanging from the door handle. I like a good fight as well as the next person, but shouldn’t we be honing the messages that will differentiate the parties from each other? I just see the “kill her with fire” approach as being ultimately unuseful and yet another example of how internecine division tends to equal conquering by the other side.

By all means, differentiate yourselves by policy, by wonkery, by shoe color if you have to (oops, that will give women an edge, won’t it?) but differentiating yourselves by how loudly you can scream at the front-runner seems self-defeating. After all, the only reason to engage in such behavior is to BECOME the front-runner, right? If the only way you can “win” is to be a bigger asshole than the next three guys, well, you know what that will ensure us as an electorate? That we elect the person capable of the most assholery.

I don’t think that’s a direction in which we want to go any further. In fact, it’s how we got Luke Dumbwaiter and Darth Cheney.

I think it’s time for a change, don’t you?

No Forward Steps!

2007-11-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

By Badphairy

Please stop forwarding e-mails. All of them. I’m serious.

I have 2000 documents in my gmail. At least ¼ of them are mass forwards. I don’t think it’s worth my time to actually read each one, so I just wait until it gets overwhelming and then delete by the page or by the username.

Actually, the stuff from people I expect to get spam from, is fine. I can just delete those when I see them, realizing that I might be missing the Prayer for the Cute Infant of X Species of the Day/Week/Month/Millennium/Era/Multiverse. Fine with me, the cultural overattention to neoteny is nauseating.

People who are so gullible they actually believe the latest Nigerian Prince hoax are what truly make me nuts. How hard is it, REALLY, to enter the first line of any such e-mail into your browser along with the word scam or hoax, and spend all of 1.2 seconds doing your own due diligence? Given that people tend to cluster in age/IQ groups, it’s likely that if you are a dumbass auto-forwarder, at least three of your friends are, too. It’s also quite likely that if you continue in this behavior, those are the friends you will have left after the smarter people get sick of being reminded how easily you are taken in.

I take an extremely dim view of such lack of research. If I want to know something, I’ll just look it up, knowing in advance that asking someone else will also provide me with an extra leavening of the other person’s opinion, which is not the point of finding something out for yourself in the first place.

While writing this, I realize that this is exactly why I don’t add to my e-mail database of contacts very often. For every three people I seem to add, one is an auto-forwarder.

Additionally, I have yet to find a nice way to say, “With every idiotic e-mail promising great riches that you send me, my estimation of your intellectual adequacy decreases. May want to watch that.”

I just got a forward today from someone I usually describe as “painfully earnest”, emphasis on “painfully”. She said it had been on Good Morning America. Without even scrolling down to the text, I knew A: it was a hoax and therefore B: she had heard it on GMA and not bothered to listen to the reason it was on GMA, e.g. it was a hoax. Do I have increased respect for her sagacity today? Why, no. Funny, that.

Finally, and most importantly, these are not just e-mails that make it easy to tell which of your friends are dupes. They open your computer to worms, bots, trojan horses and other ickies that like to linger in your system and cause you trouble later. It is in your best interest to ask people to kindly stop cluttering your inbox with objects they can’t guarantee the provenance of, and can ruin your system with.

If your friend walked up to you at the airport door and handed you a suitcase and said “Just take it through Security for me” you wouldn’t do it. By accepting fwds, you’re allowing that suitcase to be opened in your hard drive.

This means, of course, that you should be very careful about whom you forward e-mails to. Rest assured, the joke lists and cartoons can be found nearly anywhere. No one is going to wither away and die because the latest “Hang in There” kitty pic won’t be gracing their inbox this week. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

No forwards; make it your mantra, too.

Badphairy Writes Her Local Politician

2007-10-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

By Badphairy

I used to be so proud to be your constituent. I gladly and loudly agreed that Barbara Lee Speaks for Me.

Then I realized you were one of the people being eagerly conned by Your Black Muslim Bakery.

Did you really believe that all it takes to be successful and above-board are expensive suits, short haircuts, and luxury cars? Did you really believe that lack of financial oversight was some kind of gift? In fact, I don’t have any idea what you believed, but whatever it was, you believed in such great error that it cost innocent people their lives.

When the police are afraid of a bunch of twenty-somethings such that they won’t even write them tickets, there is something incredibly wrong.

When the police don’t even bother to follow up any crime less dangerous than a murder, there is something incredibly wrong.

When the entire city continues its slow-motion slide into a morass of lawlessness regardless of who it elects to office, there is something so wrong that it threatens democracy in a substantial and basic way.

I don’t know what the answer is, for Oakland, and I greatly fear the elected officials of Oakland don’t even know the right questions to ask.

I do know now, that the woman I thought was doing excellent work for Oakland, is far less excellent than I previously thought.

When you come up for election again, I will be taking a very detailed look at your opposition, since anyone who didn’t allocate money to, and pose for pictures with the Bey family will have an automatic edge.

What's got the Badphairy's hackles up? Here's a big hint.

Brandy You're A Fine Girl...Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love H.R.

2007-06-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

I haven’t looked for a job in years. I spent years temping, where I usually interviewed with the agency once, and then just got sent to places cold, on the assumption, usually validated, that I possessed the tools to make almost anything work.

But here in California, during a depression, temp agencies are quiet and the resourceful must look elsewhere. Elsewhere means into the “real” economy. I have to get a job unmediated by agency workers who have faith in my skill range. I am now at the mercy of people who look at my 4’11” and assume that I’m 10. Regardless of the words on my resume, regardless of my educational record, regardless of the references I provide, whom they refuse to call. Because I “look” young, then I must be. I am treated accordingly.

This then is the tale of the worst interviewer I’ve ever had. Not the worst interview on my part, but the least socially graced interviewer with the most disrespectful, arrogant attitude I have ever seen. Granted, I was ten minutes late. Not that I had arrived late, but it took me that long to wrestle my front wheel off so I could lock up my bike.

I was shown into the “lunchroom” a space roughly 6’ by 12’ taken up mostly by a counter holding two microwaves. The end of the room was dominated by a small table and four chairs, behind which was wedged a half-size spring water dispenser.

I cooled my heels for a good five minutes before Brandy made her debut.

She was short, blonde, young, and haughty. Her attitude was not well supported by the coffee drip staining her powder-blue Mervyn’s sweater/tank, half of a twin set no doubt. She seated herself, set some papers, which turned out to be my resumé, on the table and looked at me expectantly. Since I am used to the interviewer asking the first questions, I waited. Finally into the silence, I lobbed, “So what does XYZ Company offer me?”

She gave me a blank look and fidgeted for a moment. She said uneasily, “We’re offering five four-midnight shifts, rotating Saturdays required.” No smile.

Predictably, my next question was, “What’s the rate of pay?”

She retorted with a smirk, “It depends on your experience.”

I resisted the urge to lean over and tap my resumé and say, “Well, here’s the record of my experience which you have had for two weeks. Shall I read it to you, or would you like me to recite from memory?” Envisioning a horde of annoyed nuns from the order who ran my college all descending upon me with sharpened rulers, I said sweetly, “Well then, in what part of this process do I find out what my rate of pay would be?

She started a long rambling answer involving background and reference checks and then putative calls from her alleged superior. I checked out about halfway through and started filling out the paperwork while making encouraging noises like, “hm” and “I see.” I was thinking “I’ve been lied to more convincingly by at least ten other H.R. nitwits, kiddo, you are NOT in their league….or mine, for that matter.”

You see, as the interview progressed, her annoyance grew, uncamouflaged by any such niceties as professionalism or the hint of a social grace. I have never been considered particularly skilled at the ballet of negotiation, but hell, I could jeté and grand battement rings around this girlie without breaking a sweat.

Because I couldn’t resist…and she had just asked me four times why I moved here. Apparently my versions of “Because this is where I want to live” were being turned into Sanskrit by the stale microwaved air…or possibly her shell-pink, acne-shadowed ears. In any case I briskly asked her, “Brandy, how did you come to work for XYZ Company?” She gave a slightly rueful grimace and told me of her last job at SchnauzerTech, where she was betitled Employment Quality Engineer (gag). Unfortunately, due to the current econom….troubles, she had been downsized and XYZ picked her up for their shallow promises of “steady, but really crappy, job”.

I admit, I lost all pretense of wanting this position…but I leaned over and quietly said, “Oh. Dot-Bombed.” The expression on her face put me in mind of a pit bull separated from a teasing ten year old by a ten-foot fence. I didn’t understand. I hadn’t even gone so far as to make the explosion noise! Much less the whistling as it comes down…..as I gleefully thought of Slim Pickens’ multi-megaton ride, I forgot all about the snippy Anglo attitude stewing across the table.

Annoyed, she then works her way through a series of insipidly inane inquiries as I answer them, such as "Is there anything that would prevent you from coming to work, other than a hospitalization? Do you feel that work is essential to a good life?") Yes, Brandy dear, I have a liberal arts degree too. In fact, I’ve graded the “What Is Essential To A Good Life” essays on several occasions. I bet I would’ve given you a “C”.

She ends up with, “What kind of salary would get you here in the morning?"

I replied “30”, meaning ‘thousand a year’.

She retorts with a supercilious snort "Realistically."

Knowing that thrusting an expensive pen deeply into her orbital cavity would just earn me further agony, I tapped my pen on my lips and murmured, “Interesting that you would say that.”

Which it was, of course. I mean really, she’s offering me a 40 hours a week trapped in a minimally bulletproof cage through which I mediate the relationship of the poorest people with their scant funds. For this glowing opportunity I have spent six years in college, earning two degrees and the inability to write in anything but APA style. At least once a day I would be guaranteed a smelly, drunken, chaotic exchange with someone who was sure I was sent to this earth to deny them their next three dollars, during which I would be expected to suck it up, apologize profusely while not giving in, and somehow convey an impression that I also gave a damn. And for all this consummate acting, much less the math skills required, they apparently wanted to pay me around $10/hr.

This will not do. I make $10 an hour at a job I dearly love, and consider myself lucky to get it. However, you may not treat me poorly, and expect me to take others’ poor treatment graciously, AND insult me with 18K a year (for which at least 1K will be spent on antacids) for the privilege of boring and/or provoking me to fucking insanity 40 hours a week!

I donned my most reasonable mask and leaned over into Brandy’s space and whispered, “Okay, realistically, 29.5.”

She stared at me so hard I could see her eyes water. I felt a mild tingling as I thickened my proverbial skin. She tried another tack, "Do you have any other offers on the table?"

I mentally offered myself the lack of ulcers for the privilege of staying home and never seeing Brandy again. “Of course!”

She pounced, “What are they offering?”

I dodged, "That's not something I feel comfortable discussing.”

"You're not going to let us compete with them?!!!" she flared.

I SHOULD have said, "Do you think price is the only thing you have to compete with?" Which begs the question, what has Brandy offered? A definitive 40 hours a week, ironclad, no changes, no flexibility. An end time of 11:30 pm when I will be a lone woman riding through Oakland on a bike five consecutive days a week. She cannot or will not tell me what my labor would be worth to XYZ company, however, if any other companies have bothered to make this fact known to me, I should immediately tell courteous, kind, friendly Brandy about it just as fast as I can. But I didn't. I said, "If I were in someone else's office and they asked me what XYZ company offered, I wouldn't tell them either." Of course, I couldn’t tell another company about her offer, because she refused to tell me what the offer would be. I gave her the look of contempt anyone who has played casino poker should give to the woefully inept, and waited.

Since her glare just bounced off my by-now-rhino-like skin, she chose to press the issue, Brandy’s Mistake #6421. She favors me with her best supercilious glare to convince me that I have just crawled out the briar patch and even dumb pickanninnies need to show more sense than I have, so far.

I reminded myself that “supercilious” can also mean, “having too many cilia” but I still wanted to slap her pointed little hood. It was one of those moments where I say to the shade of Martin Luther King Jr., “Uhhhhh, dude? When we have judged the content of their character and found it wanting, THEN can we burn down their neighborhoods?” I have always wanted to riot and destroy something tasteful. Why destroy Hunter’s Point, South Central or Watts, or Over-The-Rhine, when we could raze Knob Hill, Beverly Hills, or Sharonville?

I can’t do everything, but I could destroy Brandy’s negotiating “skill”. A friend summed up her negotiation dance, thusly. I start with, “I want $50K a year and 4 months vacation and a signing bonus.

Brandy, “No.”

“Ok, what will you give me?”

“$15K and you're chained in the cellar.”

“No.”

“Now what?” This is more akin to boxing than ballet.

While I was thinking, she has peremptorily snapped, "Why do you think this is the way to negotiate",

So my answer to Brandy is simply, "Because that's the way I was taught." After which I glissade into the wings to await the next move in our shoddy little pas de deux. .

She glared at the extra head that apparently grew out of my shoulders and was quiet for a minute. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my cat for the many staredown contests we have waged over the last twelve years. They are now coming in quite handy.

Finally, I broke the silence,” So, what’s next?” I was tired of playing mindgames with the underendowed and wanted a mocha. She just pushed the paperwork at me and gestured at a pen. I pushed them back, since I had already filled them out during some previous useless propaganda-spouting moment of hers. She looked through the window behind me and said, “Oh, my manager wants me, I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah, sure, Brandy, except that you left so fast the air molecules were confused, emitting a sonic boom, as they rushed into the space your ego had occupied.” I knew that when I left, all the heads in the office would watch me go, turning like fast-motion daisies following the sun. I used my alone time to pack up documents, tutus, and toe shoes, and extract my keys.

As we walk through the office, conversations stop and all eyes watch me leave. Yes, people, look at the free person refusing to sell her soul to this particular font of boredom and drudgery. And yes, in today’s America, it is mostly a tradeoff of this particularly excruciating tedium for some other slightly less painful tedium. But of such small sacrifices and victories is fine ballet crafted. I like to think Judith Jamison would be proud. I wonder if Oakland Ballet needs an employee. I have a dance for them.

On Not Shutting Up

2007-06-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

Today on Forum, the program was called “Silences”. It was about the great and peculiar silence that dogs interracial children.

You know, the silence that ensues whenever one makes reference to one’s race….followed by the defensive, jerky platitudes about “It’s their problem”, and “We’re colorblind.” Blind possibly, colorblind, never.

It was a conspiracy that no one ever signed on the dotted line for, but joined enthusiastically anyway. “We’re raising you as a white person, and as long as nobody ever breaks the illusion, everything’s okay”. Well, fine, but every time I pass the front door, I’m not in that world anymore.

What I can’t do is take my family’s perceptions outside the house, nor can I bring the reality of the outside world inside. I have no idea why I’m not a schizophrenic.

Even now, I’m in the process of losing my friend of 15+ years, partially because any time I mention the word “black” her ears shut off and she attributes everything I say to “whining”. You see, apparently there is no history of black people in America, and even if there is, I am not allowed to speak of it or the discomfort is just too much for her to bear.

How do I deal with “I love you except for the entirety of your appearance and what it means historically and contemporarily in society”. It’s been 36 years and I’m still trying to figure that out.

Make no mistake, everyone else seems fine with adopted people taking on any “culture” they want, as long as said culture matches their skin color. Even though my parents are white and raised me as “white” it’s the ONE culture/ethnicity I can’t pull off.

My apparently-soon-to-be-ex friend is adopted, and has no compunction or sense of irony about regaling me with tales of her Czech “heritage” for hours at a time, however, Kwanzaa-talk from me is completely out of bounds. Sharing my feelings about Angola prison, was definitely unwelcome, not tolerated, aroused intense defensiveness and anger. I’m still not sure why.

It’s not even a question of critique, i.e. “Hey, you’re kinda confrontational. Maybe there’s a less intimidating fashion for you to put your ideas across.” No, it’s “Shut up.”

It was my mother’s reaction when I asked yet again about my adoption when I was eleven, she said, “Shut up. I don’t want to hear about it again until you’re 18 and can go do something about it.” Yes, I’m feeling the “love.” Aren’t you?

The few “black” people I’ve dealt with didn’t like the compromises I made in speech and pursuit of higher education in order to survive in the world from which I came. “You use too many words and they’re too big.” Rather than dumb myself down (I do have some self-respect) I continue to go my own way, but the lack of “black” culture makes me uncomfortable with them and vice versa.

So, I stand where I always have, firmly in a limbo of society’s making, but my very own personal problem. I don’t even get any credit from the majority of people who say they “love” me for the mental balancing act I have to achieve daily.

While it’s lovely for young people growing up today to be able to hear the pain of the people in my generation -- who had no one to look up to, identify with, or even read about, I really wish I had known I wasn’t alone until recently. Luckily, there is now an organization called ipride to help those coming up.

I wish I hadn’t been complicit in silence (and many who know me argue I wasn’t silent, but that they had and have no ears to hear), and I refuse to comply, even if the silence demanded of me will cost me someone I was once so sure loved me, but apparently only as long as I participated in the myth of “I’ll help you rejustify your prejudices by joining in your pretense that race isn’t “important” as long as I hang out with you and promise never to talk about it”.

If it’s so “not important” then why do I keep hearing “Shut up”, no matter how long I wait for people to listen?

Farewell to Falwell -- And Good Riddance

2007-05-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

Jerry Falwell died this week, and while it may be unseemly to dance on his grave, trip the light fantastic, I shall.

Seriously, he was one of, if not the, least careful, least compassionate purveyors of the purported “love of Christ” I have encountered in my lifetime. Only Fred Phelps’ ability to be a gigantic religious rectal fistula surpasses Falwell’s voluminous achievements in this field.

Not only did he famously say, "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals," he spent even more time refining that notion. "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

I’m sure that any God worth his or her burnt offering will have special little punishments for all kinds of transgressions, like wearing white after Labor Day, but I don’t spend a lot of time trying to specifically enumerate each one. He also said “I truly cannot imagine men with men, women with women, doing what they were not physically created to do, without abnormal stress and misbehavior."

Funny, that’s how I feel about single-sex bowling leagues, but I don’t tell people they’re going to hell if they belong to one.

Note to Fat, Creepy Fundies: please stop spending long summer afternoons imagining gay people having sex. It’s bad enough when we imagine y’all in Speedos, feather boas, and the latest in faux leatherwear from CHAPped.com. At least we don’t tell everyone else about the long nights of ensuing vomiting and diarrhea, which can only be resolved by pajama parties centered around bathtubs full of generic Appletinis. Just stop imagining gay sex, and the cosmo, mojito and various-tini shortages will all stop, immediately.

He was a major perpetrator of the “homo as boogeyman” philosophy, as evidenced by this further quote: “We will see a breakdown of the family and family values if we decide to approve same-sex marriage, and if we decide to establish homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle with all the benefits that go with equating it with the heterosexual lifestyle.”

Errr, I haven’t noticed New York, Vermont, or even Oregon going up in flames, recently, have you? Georgia and Florida on the other hand, restrict same sex marriage and they’re burning down. Who should we believe? Evangelists or our own eyes? Looks to me like God might not be so happy with the current crop of aging fundie leadership, hmmmm.

Just to be very clear about how much he hated the homos, he finished off with, “[homosexuals are] brute beasts...part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”

Well, frankly, Jer, it’s gonna be a boring-ass celebration. No trendy drinks, or tight pants, just a bunch of Mormons not showing off their special underwear, and every humorless jackass “partying down”. Yeah, let me know when Ticketmaster gets hold of that revenue stream, so I can fail to wait in an endless telequeue for tickets to the Most Asinine Gathering, EVAR.

Unfortunately for the rest of the sarcasm industry, Falwell was never indicted for sleeping with prostitutes or partying with the KKK, although he was in bed with apartheid South Africa and Reagan's shameful legacy in South America. Those two stances do prompt one to reflect, “When did Jesus say, ‘Love your neighbor, unless they’re brown in which case enslave, exploit and destroy them” which is, frankly, a very Old Testament way of looking at things.

Additionally, Jesus counseled that love is the greatest of gifts one could give to another, regardless of the others’ faith tradition. Did Falwell believe this? Here’s his quote, “If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.”

Wow, can’t you just feel the compassion?

This is the same guy who, in 1999, asserted that the Antichrist was a male Jew. I imagine Streisand started scripting "Yentl 2: Electric Jewgaloo" about then (straight to video, not sadly).

This is what he said right after 911, “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'You helped this happen".

Yup, everything bad that happens is the fault of the homos, and everything good belongs to God. What a nuanced, carefully thought-out position which affords the greatest good for the greatest number. Not. Here are a few more quotes:

“The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability”

"The argument that making contraceptives available to young people would prevent teen pregnancies is ridiculous. That's like offering a cookbook as a cure to people who are trying to lose weight."

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" -- Rev Jerry Falwell, "America Can Be Saved," 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, "The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom"

"The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc."
-- Jerry Falwell, "Finding Inner Peace and Strength"

"I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status."
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, USA Today Chat, quoted from The Religious Freedom Coalition, "The Two faces of Jerry Falwell"

I mean seriously, in the aftermath of his untimely (as in too late) demise, we’re supposed to forget everything bad he ever said about homosexuals just to make the Christians feel good about lionizing him, which they were going to do anyway?

Pharisee, please.

Freeway Fixes

2007-05-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, the 580 freeway melted onto the 880. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures, heard the sensational coverage, etc., so I’m not going to recap. If you are hearing this for the first time, Google is your friend.

I’d like to comment upon some oft-overlooked points regarding the Golden State.

As I watched New Orleans partly wash away, I remember clearly spending several hours screaming at my television, because there were so many things that needed to be done, that weren’t. There was no leadership on the ground for more than three days. Part of what made that such a fiasco is that nobody in power bothered to show up.

When the freeway melted, the worst that happened was that the burned, shocky driver had to walk to within three blocks of my house (over a mile from the accident) to find a gas station and a cabby to get him to the hospital. Much has been made of West Oaklanders not picking him up when he tried to flag them down.

Umm, dudes, it’s farking WEST OAKLAND. What isn’t a warehouse or an abandoned factory, is some of the worst housing in Oakland. Additionally, one pretty much doesn’t want to pick up a weird-acting stranger who is gesturing wildly at one’s car at 4:00am on a Sunday morning. Heck, I’ve gotten to the point where I usually don’t make eye contact with men in general, because they are most likely to take that as an invitation to ask me for A: money, B: my marital status, or C: both. .

When the broken freeway was brought to my attention, my first thought was that the government needed to announce additional trains/buses/ferries to handle the increased mass transit use Monday morning. By 4:00pm Sunday, exactly that had been announced by several news stations.

I had worried they wouldn’t add any ferries, either due to overlooking them or because there simply wasn’t any expansion capacity. Realize that the ferry system in the Bay Area is not a legacy system like the cable car network. Commuter ferries were a response to Loma Prieta (1989), when the government at the time realized that the Bay Bridge wasn’t going to be immediately fixable, and the increased traffic on the remaining commuter routes were straining roads and drivers to the breaking point.

Secondly, I thought we should declare a state of emergency and start trying to get federal funds to assist in the rebuild. Again, by 4:00pm Sunday, exactly that had happened.

I also thought that rather than the incredibly confusing maps most TV networks were using, someone needed to use a dash-mounted camera to drive through the detours and let drivers know what they’d see in the morning. CBS News was right on that, giving driver views of the mess by about 3pm.

I wanted to see the governor, and possibly the mayor of Oakland to give some facetime to this issue. Imagine my surprise when finding out that due to the Democratic Convention in San Diego, the mayors of both Oakland and SF and the Governator were all down at the site by 10pm Sunday, looking solemn. Nobody managed to get Mayor Hairdo (Newsom) to put on a hard hat, though.

At that point, Arnie also announced that Monday would be a fare-free day on most transit venues Baywide. The only better version of that would have been a week of free fares, but we can’t have everything.

Demolition on the span had begun by sundown Sunday, and finished up by end of day Tuesday. Negotiations on steel purchases have begun and seem to be going well. The hastily reassigned contractors took steel and concrete samples of both bridges on Tuesday, and as soon as we know how much work needs done to the 880 (the lower span) we’ll have a much better idea of how long the 580 rebuild will take.

Basically, in the space of 18 hours, the governing bodies of the two cities/counties, and of California in general, had addressed every one of my initial concerns. I can’t express how proud that makes me of California. We have messes and waste, and pork, and wackiness, but when important stuff needs to happen, we suck it up, and make the improbable happen faster than most states can imagine.

Is anyone in Louisiana’s government taking notes?

Preparation H Helpful Post Run-in With God Skwodd

2007-04-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

The religious right is causing the odd hemorrhoid once again. I’m on a mailing list for a brunch group that meets weekly, and every so often they send an e-mail around regarding the latest Puritan outrage.

Last up was a link to the American Family Association (not some people’s families, obviously), hosting a petition about the Homosexual Agenda. You know, the bullet point right after “world domination” and before “foot massage and bulk ordering of amyl nitrite” is usually depicted as “destroying heterosexual families, marriages, and diseasing their children by the awful terrible, horrible expedient of attempting to live our lives as full citizens of this country.” We ARE so bad aren’t we? (snaps in a “Z” formation)

Now, I know there are several tacks I can take toward an organization of this nature, but I chose three avenues that I hope you’ll all remember next time you go to a site that you fervently hope doesn’t leave foul cookies in your browser like your ostensibly heterosexual neighbor’s dog leaves little “gifts” on your lawn.

Now, I could rail against them just for being discriminatory dickheads, but really, it’s been SO done. First, I chose to use statistics to bash them just a little. Their pointy lil’ heads can always get softer, is my opinion. Please find below my three hurried talking points.

1. If you're going to post a petition regarding the "homosexual agenda" perhaps you would have a more relevant sample size if you left it up for more than three hours.

I mean really. Three hours is how long you leave a Craigslist “Chance Encounters” ad up, if you want to have any hope of reclaiming your e-mail inbox in under a week. Leaving a “petition” up for that short a time just screams “We’re manipulating our sample size/population in order to get the results we want.” Then they wonder why no one credible will take their “statistics” at face value. Somebody quote Mark Twain for me regarding lies and statistics, then P.T. Barnum regarding the chronological frequency of sucker births.

Selected aborted clichés from the website:

"Christ-centered campus ministires bring gospel to America's secular generation"

"Shinning God's light in a pagan culture"

2. If you would like to be seen as an intelligent website for intelligent right wing fundie nutjobs, hire an editor. "Shinning" is something that happens to one's lower extremities. It does not refer to photonic activity. For Pete’s sake “ministering” is what you’re trying to do. At least attempt to spell it correctly!

Seriously, what is it about manhandling one’s elevated equine towards the ostensible moralicious mountaintop that seems to preclude the skillful use of the language? Their websites and press releases are rife with various grammatical gaffes that could only come from the late term abortion of their minimal linguistic aspirations. Perhaps had they been forced to listen to The Tell-Tale Heart a few times, they’d be less sanguine about the beautiful, innocent language they are so callously subjecting to an early termination in the manner they purport to despise. In listening to the predictable plethora of righties hailing the SCOTUS opinion, I hear adjectives like “horrific”, “violent”, even “murderous”.

You know what? I’ve seen an abortion. I’ve also seen a hip replacement and a coupla knee replacements. Orthopedics is far gorier, smellier, and much more visually and aurally disturbing than any OB-GYN procedure (not to mention maxillofacial reconstruction. Oh dear God, I can’t watch that stuff and eat at the same time). The reason they have to use such overblown language is that the procedure itself just isn’t that big a deal.

I also hear the pro-lifers’ new “label” for M.D.s is “abortionists”. Interesting, do we rename every job for a single procedure that takes up less than 10% of one’s worktime? If so, then lawyers are “billerists”, pizza delivery boys are “pornists” and everyone else on earth has the same job description: sleepers/eaters/urinators/defecators. Do you perhaps think that the pro-lifers are generalizing and simplifying a tad too broadly? I surely do (and yes, I called you Shirley. Deal.).

This leads me directly to my final point. Pro-lifers are incredibly skilled at using the language to bludgeon their opponents, much as they’d like to use their signs, but are prevented by various assault and battery statutes. However, they do deserve a grudging accolade from me for bothering to have a website, so here is the most backhanded “compliment” I can muster.

3. Frankly, I'm glad to see that your website is full of the same boilerplate hyperbolic talking point nonsense that is all the religious right can apparently muster.
Best of luck with that.

I’d like to hear the journalists interviewing them to call them on their adjectives. The pro-choice folks aren’t calling abortion “healthful” even though for women with health issues, it may certainly be so. As has become the usual SOP over the last few decades, the sane, balanced scientific side is being outshouted by the overly emotional Frayands O’ Jeebus.

Until that time comes, I’ll be visiting their websites every so often to screw up their poll results and correct their English. I won’t be alone, I’ll be bringing my friend, Ms. Preparation H.

Extempore: Powell Street Station

2007-04-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

Powell Street Station’s walls look like the capped ends of a layer of beeswax. Off-white hexagons with a large central dome. Mutated eggcups. It does weird things to the acoustics, because the plastic is hard, and the shapes reflect sound waves unusually.

As I pushed my way through the fare gate I heard a pure bass voice singing something vaguely familiar.

Usually, there are two white men one young, one old, playing bluegrass; the young guy on a mandolin, the old guy on a six-string. It could also be the Mexican guy with the inflated-looking guitar singing spritely songs in Spanish that are yet full of longing. Rarely, there’s an Eastern-European looking 70-ish man playing a violin.

Today, I belatedly realize that the spires of the black Mohawk I can see waving above the crowd belong to the singer. Dressed in skin-tight black jeans, black t-shirt, and a jean jacket (to steal a construction from Terry Pratchett) that, let’s just say isn’t yellow, is a pudgyish pale guy with a guitar.

He’s singing, and singing well; playing and playing with feeling. I place the song, as Folsom Prison Blues. I stop, and just let the cognitive dissonance fill me, flow through me, turn me transparent with joy.

His name is Jesse and he tells me that Johnny Cash was the first punk ever. He dressed in black and sang songs that no one else would sing, or write. I don’t argue, why should I?

I’m just so happy to be here, bathed in the glorious wrongness of it all.

Like the other day, I’m riding BART home, and I notice a simply gorgeous rear bike wheel. It’s a Bontrager, with graphite spokes. My gaze travels to the bike frame, a Trek of course, carbon fiber lovingly slathered in bright red metallic paint. Clipped to it is a hand pump, same brand as my beloved floor pump.

Non-standard carbon fiber handlebar with a Stumpy on the centerpost, best for short-bodied riders, as am I. I can’t place the shifting system, I just know it isn’t a Shimano, standard on most higher-end mass-production bikes. This isn’t one of those.

The pedals are clipped, though, speaking of a biker old enough to not want to learn to step in.

Skiers and skateboarders think that about snowboarding, too. “What if I want to bail?”

Practice, my son. With a snowboard, any bailing happens with the board attached. Get used to it. If your board comes off, it may take your feet or legs with it. Same with clipless pedals.

A young guy hopped into the ER this morning, victim of a bike crash that he couldn’t unclip from in time. So, I can see why a veteran biker would prefer to stay with conventional toecups on their pedals.

What are you picturing in your head right now? This? The rider is wearing classic pro biker attire, spandex from neck to upper thigh. Water bottle in the right back shirt pocket, wallet in the left, windbreaker knotted waist-high. The lightest, strongest, most expensive bike helmet Giro makes, bobbed on the head...

of the 60-something woman who was holding that bike.

I love the Bay Area. Want your assumptions challenged? Want to believe five impossible things before breakfast? Commute, breathe, live here.

Tomorrow morning, I will push my way through the fare gate at Powell Street Station and what will I see? Who knows? I don’t, and that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

Extempore: Sweet Dreams, Neighbor

2007-03-24T11:28:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I feel as though I am constantly on the defense against creeping paternalism.

Three years ago, when I moved in, I tended to smoke out my bathroom window. It didn’t smell up the rest of the house, and worked very well for me. Until I heard a knock on my door.

It was the guy upstairs, who objected to my using the bathroom window. Being a good little Midwesterner I said, “Oh, sorry, I’ll smoke inside,” thinking that would be the end of it. Grievously, tragically, unfortunately, not.

Somewhat later, I had my girlfriend over and we were preparing for errr “bed” and I had turned on some music so my neighbors didn’t have to listen to other sounds I assumed we’d be making shortly. There was a knock on the door.

“Can you turn it down,” opined the same guy from upstairs. So I made sure he had something to listen to once I turned the music down. It was close to ten o’clock, the city-ordained time at which noise ordinances come into effect, so I chalked it up to that and let it go.

Then, early last summer, I was showering at about 10:00am, and had turned the stereo up so I could hear it in the shower. There is no noise ordinance during the day, and since most normal people are at work, I figured nobody would care.

Wrong again. This time I didn’t hear him knock, so he tried the knob, which was unlocked. Apparently he assumed that he could just walk into my house whenever he wanted and adjust my stereo to his liking. The bathroom door was open, so I saw him as he stuck his head in the door and I inquired “Is there something with which you need help?”

He turned very red and apologized for his illegal entry (for which the statute of limitations has yet to run out, now that I think of it) and went away. End of story? Not by a long shot.

Realize, that for over a year this person’s car alarm went off every time a pillbug so much as farted near his car, usually deep in the night. Every trash truck, street cleaner, fire engine and ambulance, and there are a LOT of each going by every week, would set his alarm off until he woke up and could get to the window with his key fob. A couple hours of quiet and invariably, something else would set it off again.

I did not complain, having had a car alarm myself, and knowing how troublesome they can sometimes be to their owners. However, it was annoying as hell.

Then, he tried to evict the landlady’s grandson by falsely accusing him of being a heroin dealer. That was laughed out of court.

Recently, I’ve been going through some deep emotional shit, and have been smoking a lot. But not out my bathroom window, oh no, at my computer, which was allegedly an “okay” place, according to him. Not anymore, because Friday evening he knocks on my door again, talking about “Come up to my apartment and we can discuss a deal.”

‘Scuse me? A “deal”? His previous deals have gone like so, “Here’s how I want you to behave in your apartment to benefit me, while I offer nothing at all to benefit you.” Doesn’t sound like a “deal” to me, sounds like someone who is not my landlord attempting to dictate new terms to my lease.

It also sounds like the guy who has been stomping around on my head for the last three years not even offering to lose 50 lbs so I am less bothered by the noise he generates. That would be more of a “deal”.

I was slightly intrigued as to what else he might offer such as: use of his car once a week, disabling his car alarm on weeknights or, if I promise to smoke outside, he’ll promise to buy some earplugs and shut the fark up about any noise complaints he might have. However, I’m also very clear that people who accept “invitations” like that from people with whom 99% of their interactions have been negative, are often found in Ziplocs in Dumpsters scattered around Oakland. I didn’t go upstairs.

Apparently, when I’m home, I’m supposed to cower in my house in fear of making any sound over 20 decibels, and cannot smoke tobacco within my own ZIP code.

I have this belief that we as a nation fought not only an outright shooting war, but a Civil Rights struggle over my ability to rent where I want, and do what I want within my own home, as long as I’m not violating city, state, or federal laws. Where could I have gotten such a silly idea?

Yet this guy thinks that his prerogatives as a white man include telling me what I can do, and when and where I can do it, for no other reason than his putative comfort. Is it 1807 again and nobody told me?

We actually have a city in the Bay Area, Belmont, which restricts tobacco smoking to only single family homes or private cars. Does he live there? No, he doesn’t.

Did he bother to think, “Hey, an increase in smoking often points to some stress on the part of the smoker, perhaps I’ll ask her if she’s okay?” Since he didn’t make any such query, he must assume that everything I do is for his benefit or detriment, thus making him the central person in my life. You go ahead and believe that, Sparky.

I was recently in New Orleans for a week. When I returned, did he come down and say, “Wow, what a peaceful week, thanks so much for not smoking or playing loud NPR for the last seven days”? No, he did not.

Yes, we’re both gay people; but you know, that only goes so far. If I felt that because we’re both black, I could go next door and tell Cockroach-Breeding Drunk Chick to clean her farking kitchen, I would, but I am quite aware of just how far (or not far, as the case may be) superficial commonalities of that sort will get me.

So, here’s the “deal” I’m offering. If he doesn’t like the laws of the city, state, or nation in which he lives, he is welcome to vote/lobby to change them. If he would like to affect the terms of his lease, he is welcome to do so. If he would like to rent my apartment and sublease it to someone who agrees to his needs, he can certainly do so when I move out, pursuant to any deal he can work out with the management company. He can even appeal to the landlord to make this building a no-smoking residence, for his personal comfort.

But there will be no informal “deals” , no more concessions on my part, no discussions about how I can restrict my use of my property for his personal benefit.

Later on, the night he asked me to come up and “deal,” he was tromping loudly around on his floor/my ceiling. I took it as his only way of communicating his displeasure. Did I go whine at him to stop? Did I call the cops because he was violating the noise ordinance? No. Like an adult, I simply put in my earplugs and went to sleep.Ñ

Sweet dreams.

Bug Me Not

2007-02-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

My building got a new “exterminator” a few months ago. It’s too bad, I really liked the previous guy a lot. He was slightly sexist in that macho South American way, but incredibly sweet and funny nonetheless.

Then all of a sudden we got some seven foot, skinny former b-ball player. Due to him, I’m beginning to believe we need an ex-athlete support fund, because they’re not suited for real jobs.

This guy thinks he is the only person on the planet with the license to kill roaches. He tells me every time I see him that Raid attracts roaches. Sure, they do, smart guy. Just like WWII troops ran toward mustard gas, and Jews, gays, and Gypsies just flocked to the scent of Zyklon B. In fact, Native Americans are testing Eau de Smallpox as an aphrodisiac! Can you believe this crap?

In honor of due diligence, I called Orkin and asked them if their company believed this little tale. They didn’t. I called SC Johnson Wax, maker of Raid, and asked them if the product had ever been known to attract roaches. It hadn’t.

Yet BugHunter here keeps telling me not to spray the ones I see. I then asked him directly, “So, what do you think I should do about the ones I see running around, offer them a beer and some Cheeto crumbs? Shall I fly to Texas to purchase some pointy-toed boots?” He took my sarcasm badly, no surprises there.

Interestingly enough, since Mr. RoachMaster took the job, there have been more bugs around than ever before. Amazing, now who should I believe, some thin-skinned guy who’s doing a crappy job, or my own eyes?

According to him, I should believe him, of course. This, my friends, is the problem with having a fully open mind. Anyone at all will try to put stupid shit in it.

Such as the tables set up in the BART stations advertising “Free Stress Test”. Firstly, testing people for stress while commuting is like fishing in an aquarium doped with cyanide. Secondly, the product they’re selling (of course they’re selling something, duh) is Dianetics.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate all religions, but a religion started on a bet between drunken science fiction writers? That’s even less believable than your usual prophet profits. The last time someone tried to sell me L.Ron, I said quite truthfully, “I’m aware of his work as a sci fi writer and if his religion is likewise as poorly written, I’ll gladly give it a pass.” Now that I think about it, they took that badly, too.

I did tell Mr. Bugaboo that Johnson and Orkin disagreed with him and he replied “I don’t work for them.” I pointedly did not say, “And I know why.” He then continued, “I’ve been doing this for forty years” to which I did reply, “Then why do we still have cockroaches?”

I then pointed out that if I do as he asks, I will have more cockroaches, thus keeping him in work. “If you actually succeeded in killing them all, you wouldn’t have a job, would you?”

He mumbled a few things that I didn’t bother listening to, and then I went back to my video game and let him show himself out. I don’t think he likes me much. The feeling is heartily mutual.

Where The Guns Are

2006-11-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

The gunshots have been getting louder and closer over the last few years. I’ve also tried to be more careful to get home before dark, although I’ve been working too much to make that a reality.

I went to bed early last night and was lying there at about 9pm, when a fusillade of shots went off outside. I idly wondered whether I’d hear sirens or not and rolled over.

I’ve gotten used to the background of violence. I hear loud explosions all the time, and other than trying to estimate caliber and firearm, I pretty much dismiss them. According to the distinct lack of followup sirens, everybody else does the same. I live on an intersection, and have learned how to gauge the severity of a car accident by the sound of the impact. 98% of them I don’t even bother to lift a shade to check out the scene.

Let’s be clear, here, I am a medical assistant in training. I have no requirement to render medical aid, I don’t have a current CPR cert, and frankly most of my triage skills were learned from decades of reruns of M*A*S*H. You want a flu shot? I’m your girl. You want to decompress a pneumothorax with a razor blade and some bike pump tubing? You’re on your own, there, Dr. Hackenslash.

I don’t know how to control an accident scene, and the only tapes I have readily available are Scotch, duct, and old bootlegs of the Grateful Dead, not “yellow crime scene”.

Then I heard, very clearly, a man talking calmly into his cellphone. “Yes, a man was just shot here. I’m at the corner of MLK and 34th.” I can also hear, even more quietly, someone saying, “Ah, ah.”

The guy on the phone is standing over the victim, and they are both literally under my window.

I can actually hear the ambulance siren start, at the hospital, five blocks away. A few seconds later, red and blue police flashes light my apartment like a morbid Independence day. I hear the firetruck siren down the block wind itself up and move closer.

I don’t go to gawk. I don’t really want to witness Oakland’s eleventy-fifth murder of the year, if that’s how badly the man is hurt.

This is part of my gun dilemma. I want to own the guns I want to have. I consider myself a responsible gun person. I’m willing to register, take classes, earn the privilege.

But when people think about guns and Oakland, they’re not thinking about me, they’re thinking about whoever shot the guy bleeding onto the sidewalk outside my house.

That gun is most likely unregistered and illegal in California. So, gun laws don’t work, and the lack of gun laws don’t work. Excellent, so what do we do now?

What do I do? Had I a gun last night, would I have grabbed it and headed for the door at the first shot, hoping to get the shooter? Would I have gotten shot? Would innocent bystanders or drivers get caught up in the crossfire? Would there have been eight or nine people going to the ER, instead of just one?

Where is the national conversation on the reality of gun violence in this country? I listened to Prairie Home Companion yesterday and chuckled as Garrison Keillor talked about how hunting season is where we send drunken guys with guns out into the woods and hope for the best, which has its truth.

The inner city seems to be where we allow [insert prejudice here] people to have guns, and hope for the worst. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase “Let ‘em kill each other off, then.” Great, except that I live here, too. Nurses, doctors, students, stockbrokers, musicians, all kinds of people make up Oakland. Do they deserve to be “killed off”? Is that truth?

Who is saying the hard thing? “We need a sensible, enforceable middle ground. We need to re-examine our priorities as a society and make different choices. If it means we have to rescind previous choices, then so be it.”

Nobody’s saying it, that I’ve heard. But this is why when my OR and ID family go off about how everyone should have the right to own guns, I let them bloviate. They don’t have to listen to gunshot after siren after gunshot, night after night. There’s no one lying outside their window without even the strength to swear at the pain, much less recite the 2nd Amendment. He can’t even say “Please help me”, he can only say, “Ah.”

Who speaks for him?

Life and the Right to Lie

2006-10-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

I slaughtered millions this morning. Young, old, didn’t matter, I killed them ruthlessly. Not only that, I gloried in it. I even took pains to use special artificial chemicals engineered over decades to ensure even greater mortality than the previous chemicals which were inefficiently made directly from the bodies of animals. So did you. Was I playing video games? No, I was showering.

I think the Right to Life people should take note of this. Every time you squirt soap into your hand, you are participating in the genocide of millions of hapless bacteria. Every time you pay your water bill, you enable them to add components of mustard gas to your drinking water (ordinary chlorine).

Where, I ask you, is Fred Phelps and company? Why aren’t there protesters outside every municipal water treatment facility in the country? Don’t they know that the daily War on Germs costs more than 400 billion trillion quadrillion kajillion (probably an understatement) innocent lives? That’s not even counting the viruses killed, because those hypocrites (as well as the scientific community, who knew they agreed on anything) don’t even believe viruses are life as we currently define it? Talk about having it both ways!

I think the Right to Life movement needs to drastically widen its scope. What about those cruel yellowjacket traps that attract them in with the promise of sweet fulfillment yet turn out to offer nothing but a prolonged and ugly death. Who says yellowjackets don’t have a right to life? Pat Robertson doesn’t ever say it, so whose “life” is so important then? Didn’t the Bible say “Suffer the little children”, so you know, Jesus meant for children to get stung. Yellowjackets don’t even die after stinging, and God made them that way, on purpose. Doesn’t that tell you something about God’s will, here? Huh? Wake up, dammit!

I say something needs to be done about the slaughter of all sorts of lifeforms (and viruses), and if a group of people wants to scream about rights to be alive, well, they should start with those lives who are being undervalued the most. Why, your local Wal—sorry---Target actually sells products that tout how much better at killing they are! Might as well sell guns, why don’t they?

Have you ever witnessed the interminable minutes of a cockroaches’ slow agonizing death due to nerve poison? How could any God-loving Christian fail to see the parallel to the Via Dolorosa? (I am currently engaged in the whittling of toothpicks into tiny replicas of the True Cross in case anyone wants to stage an arthropodian re-enactment, but I digress.)

In my opinion, the Right to Life movement is currently mired in hypocrisy. They should be eschewing the death of anything at all, including their own. They need to wise up, stop showering, stop treating their water, stop contributing to the mass insect die-off, and stop using fossil fuels, because what is that really but contributing from deaths millions of years old? There is no statute of limitations on the Right to Life!

I think it’s time we call them what they are, the Right to Lie movement, and until they become shaggy, stinky, itchy pedestrians, they have no right to be taken seriously in any context.

/This message brought to you indirectly from the good folks at Guinness Brewing Ltd., St. James Gate, Scotland.

Doin' "That"

2006-09-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve been hearing people tell me “I couldn’t do that” for a lot of my life. The latest instance is the occasion of needing to have an IV rig hanging from my closet shoe rack. More on that in a moment.

I think we have inflated notions of our own fragility. The guy who sawed his own arm off is a hero of sorts, yes, but your body will enjoin your mind to make decisions like “I could either die here, attached to my arm (which is crushed under this huge rock) or I could survive and leave the arm.” He may never go unmolested through airport security again, but that’s a different kind of pain. Ask any ten mothers at random whether there’s a moment of “Get it out or give me a scalpel” and you’ll probably hear “yes” at least eight times. When it comes right down to “Will you do what it takes to continue your life or the life of someone you love, can you do whatever ‘that’ is?”

My cat’s behavior has been “off” lately. As I told the vet, “I don’t have any new scars, scratches, bites, or scrapes on my arms and hands, so no, she hasn’t been herself.” I pretended not to see the little grin on the vet’s face; she must be a cat person.

The really alarming moment was when I realized the beast wasn’t eating. That’s unheard of. This cat used to weigh 23 pounds; not eating is anathema to her self-concept. She was also drinking a huge amount, and yarking about half of it onto my floor each time. Blech.

When I took her in, the vet wanted a urine sample. “I haven’t been a vet tech in twenty years, and I don’t remember how you get a urine sample from a cat; sounds like a rodeo to me.” She laughed and told me I could either fill the cat box with aquarium rocks, and then bring in the damp contents, or they could use a needle. I chose needle and they took the cat away. I was worried more for the poor techs than my cat. She is the dangerous one.

A young woman brought her back a few minutes later. I think I have a new scar just from the evil cat-glare that said, “I have been SO personally violated and it’s all YOUR fault.” I suddenly had an insight of how fathers feel in the delivery room, and began to worry about waking up with a mouthful of damp cat litter some random morning.

Two days later, the vet calls and tells me the cat’s kidneys are failing. Shit, I know she’s old, but I didn’t need physical confirmation of same. They tell me to come in for a “fluid demonstration”, what is this, physics?

The tech rolls in with two bags of lactated Ringer’s (sterile hydration solution) on an IV tower, the tubing rig, and a bag of (18 gauge!) needles. For comparison purposes, most human injections are done with a (smaller) 25 gauge needle, as an 18 will both hurt and leave a rather unsightly hole in one’s outer integument.

Oh crap, they want me to do this, at home. I turn to the cat, who is looking rather peaked, and look at the tech, holding out the needle, and sigh. I’m not getting out of this.

Luckily, subcutaneous administration in cats is pretty easy. Their skin is rather baggy, so you grab a fold (between the shoulders blades is ideal) and pull it away from the body, inserting the needle in the resulting space below your fingers. The hard part is getting her to sit still for the five minutes it takes to run 100 mL through the needle.

When I’m done, I release the cat, who now has a huge bolus of fluid over her shoulders. She looks like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, mostly because when I comment on her lovely new addition she gives me a look that says eloquently, “What hump?”

However, the other evening, after the third treatment, she jumped onto the bed and wanted to play, “attack the moving thing under the duvet”. If the result of my sticking her with a needle twice a week, is having my favorite evil nemesis feel up to attacking me again, then yes, I can do ‘that’.

Good Night, Funny Woman

2006-09-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today, America has lost one of the great ones. She was never President, she was not a millionaire, she was simply one of the classiest, hardest-nosed, most ethical and funniest women on the planet this side of Helen Thomas.

Dorothy Ann Richards was born September 1, 1933 in Lakeview Texas. If you ever wondered what kind of parents could raise a woman like that, Ann said of her father, ““I have always had the feeling I could do anything and my dad told me I could. I was in college before I found out he might be wrong.”

She was the governor of Texas from January 15, 1991 to January 17, 1995, a time of economic growth in Texas, against a backdrop of national decline. She reformed the prison system, and instituted a state lottery to shore up school funding.

However, it was her mouth that made her famous. From the wry “I thought I knew Texas pretty well, but I had no notion of its size until I campaigned it” to the profound, “I'm really glad that your young people missed the Depression. I'm really glad that your young people missed the Depression and missed the big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile. They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose,” she could come to the heart of things, and quicken its beat.

Unlike the 24/7 vitriol chunkspew of today’s political climate, she could finesse an insult with the best of them “Poor George (W. Bush) he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

She gave credit where it wasn’t often considered due “I have a real soft spot in my heart for librarians and people who care about books”, and made sure to include her former profession and colleagues, “Teaching was the hardest work I had ever done, and it remains the hardest work I have done to date.”

I’ve recently become fond of her trenchant observation ““I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you,” although I don’t restrict it to politics.

Just in case we have failed to mention it, since she left office she had campaigned for many a Democratic candidate across the nation. If, as Molly Ivins says, “You got to dance with them what brung you” Ann tripped the light fantastic graciously, backwards, and in high heels.

If every so often she trod on the Republicans’ toes, she did it with such panache that even they had to smile. So, Ann, you will be mourned, missed, and warmly remembered. Rest peacefully, knowing you fought a great fight, and did not falter.

See below.
Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican:
1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault.
2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.
3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.
4. You have to believe that AIDS victims deserve their disease, but smokers with lung cancer and overweight individuals with heart disease don't deserve theirs.
5. You have to appreciate the power rush that comes with sporting a gun.
6. You have to believe...everything Rush Limbaugh says.
7. You have to believe that the agricultural, restaurant, housing and hotel industries can survive without immigrant labor.
8. You have to believe God hates homosexuality, but loves the death penalty.
9. You have to believe society is color-blind and growing up black in America doesn't diminish your opportunities, but you still won't vote for Alan Keyes.
10. You have to believe that pollution is OK as long as it makes a profit.
11. You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.
12. You have to believe Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde were really faithful husbands.
13. You have to believe speaking a few Spanish phrases makes you instantly popular in the barrio.
14. You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.
15. You have to be against government interference in business, until your oil company, corporation or Savings and Loan is about to go broke and you beg for a government bail out.
16. You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your hatred for AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.
17. You have to believe government has nothing to do with providing police protection, national defense, and building roads.
18. You have to believe a poor, minority student with a disciplinary history and failing grades will be admitted into an elite private school with a $1,000 voucher.

Badphairy's Here for the Argument

2006-08-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

It’s easy to believe sometimes, that we live in a world hostile to us at every turn, outside of our close associates, and sometimes inside of them, too.

I have the dubious advantage of living/working in Oakland/Berkeley, each of which has its own, completely differing, reputation.

Berkeley is allegedly a haven for hippies, counter-culturists (WTF is that, nowadays, someone who does believe in global warming?) and general oddballs. Never mind that it’s basically a conservative college town with a median home price of $1,000,000 or so. That’s for a three-bdrm, one bath Victorian that needs a new foundation. Not very many beatniks, hippies, or panhandlers can afford that.

Oakland is an awful place, murder capital of the nation every couple of years, and just chock-full of black people, heaven forfend. White people have to be out by sundown (according to one dumbass Texan I had the misfortune to meet recently). This of course, is hogwash, since the black population of Oakland is at best, 40%. The other 60% is not made up solely of Asians and Hispanics, kids. Lots of white people live comfortably in Oakland. We have the first man-made wildlife refuge in the nation (Lake Merritt). We even have parks, and a world-class ice skating center. (I was there today, it was very nice. They need a new zamboni, though.)

The cities are right next to each other, share a county, and are likely more similar than different. Living in one or the other gives the resident its reputation. The other day I was attempting to make the point that there are many other social angles to the link between poverty/obesity than “poor people are lazy assholes”. Using pubtrans to get to the grocery store takes about eight times as long as driving, you can only carry so much, and when you get home you have to cook, and store leftovers. Or one could just go to McDonalds. Really basic sociological stuff like that.

I got a couple people talking to me about the joys and money saving of canning. In the city. Right. So, you take pubtrans ($3.50 round trip plus a three block walk each way), buy fresh vegetables at many times the cost of prepared foods (1 pound of asparagus $1.45, 1 pkg crappy hotdogs $1.29…which feeds you longer, hello) buy glass jars (can’t imagine where. There’s no Kmart, WalMart, anything within a five mile radius), pans to sterilize in, spend many hours a day (what job?) in a hot kitchen in the hottest part of the summer…heating things…

You know, my mother used to can our garden produce and I had to help. It had to be one of the crappiest jobs to have in late summer EVER. It’s hot as hell and humid as Florida, and you’re trapped in the kitchen boiling and steaming things (and yourself)! I’d rather shovel shit. At least I’d be outside.

However, I have reason to know that. The idiots offering “tips” assumed that since I said I lived in Oakland, I was some dumb ghetto whore who didn’t know a radish from a rutabaga. Never mind that I moved here three years ago, have a background in animal husbandry, and don’t routinely kill plants if I can help it. The sad part is, they didn’t bother to ask whether I knew anything, they were comfortable in applying their asinine generalities as if they were the actual fact. Thus does where one lives, and with whom one associates, rub off on other people as a predictor of one’s status. Books, covers, judgments by… Look it up, people.

Thus it is easy to believe one lives in a world hostile to at least one of the adjectives forming one’s putative “identity”.

Sometimes, rarely, there is that shining moment where one realizes that there are truly allies out there. Not just people who pay lip service to “we feel your pain”, but people who live by what they say.

In this particular case, a person with a good sense of humor, too.

So, to make a long story short (too late!) I’m arguing with yet a different set of people about gay marriage, (toward which my dubiousness has previously been registered) and someone else in the thread offered this gem about his not-upcoming wedding.

“We have quite a few gay friends, and we both sort of feel like inviting them to a wedding would be like inviting your black friends in the 60s to watch you eat your lunch at a restaurant. ”1

I nearly inhaled an entire mouthful of beer. I got enough to realize that the feeling of CO2 bubbles in your sinuses is not so jolly as one might surmise. I began to sing “What a Friend We Have in BunkoSquad” then realized I’d been an agnostic long enough to forget the actual words.

That one remark cheered me up for hours. We do live in a hostile world, but keep your eyes peeled for allies. You find them in unlikely places.

Speaking of hostile worlds, I’ll be in Oregon next week, where we currently plan to staff a booth at the Celtic Festival, go kayaking, and ride horses up a volcano. Umm, that last one seem odd to anyone else? I’ll write a dispatch from the road, if I live that long. 2

1. Quote authored by BunkoSquad@gmail.com, alias Michael, last name, Johnson-Smith-Chen (not really)
2. I’ve been reading a lot of Bill Bryson’s belly laughter-inducing travel writing. I highly recommend him...

Old Girl, Old Truck, Good Old Time

2006-08-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I drove out to Drake’s Bay Lighthouse, which is on a long spit of land stretching out into the Pacific. The lighthouse was closed, so there was almost no one there. I saw brown pelicans, a hawk, several turkey buzzards, and found out there are several dairy farms out there, who’da thunk?

I had gone first to Muir Woods, but as I was vulturing around the third overflow parking area I thought, “There are too damn many people here.” So, I left for Muir Beach. Not only was it full of people, there were signs explicitly warning against not only going in the water, but letting it touch your skin at all. This did not dissuade anyone from frolicking in the polluted green waves, of course.

Stinson Beach was the same, so I kept driving north to Drake’s Bay. The road there is a hoot. Of course, I was driving a six-cylinder engine in a midsize frame. I didn’t even discover the overdrive til later. It’s one of those iconic California drives, cliff up on the right and water near road level on the left. Later, cliff up on the right, cliff down on the left, water far below. In places the road had eroded such that it was a single lane. Someday, I’m renting a Porsche and doing that drive at dawn.

There’s nothing so wonderful as the smell of a sun-warmed cedar and eucalyptus forest.

On the north side of the peninsula, there was a beach that was almost deserted. The sign said nothing about pollution but it did caution one against rip, sneak, neap, dry, wet, salty, brackish, luminous, and high tides. The surf was breaking about 50 yards out and looked nasty. It smelled great, though, I love the ocean. Thanks to my first ex, I even have developed an enjoyment for the scent of low tide, which few have and even fewer want.

Part of it was being far enough from the city to share the beach with only a couple of heterosexuals reading/snoozing with their backs to a driftwood log, and a child riding her bike in big ellipses in the parking lot as her somewhat anxious-looking mother watched from the car.

I parked, took a deep breath of salt air, and was so ecstatic I was teary.

Part of it was needing a new, weaker prescription for birth control (women, you know what I’m saying), part of it was just driving. It makes me happy. It’s terrible that I love it so much. It’s the quintessential Americanness of having an entire IC engine and stereo system to oneself, and believing for just an hour or two that you, too, are King of the Road. Mmmmmm. I was even enjoying FM radio. Sick, isn’t it?

I was bopping along to BTO when I had a sudden string of realizations that went like this:
1. The last time I heard this song I was in X’s car
2. The last time I saw X was 1978
3. The last time I heard this song it was on an 8-track!
4. I am now old.
Seriously, “classic rock” is now what I remember from my adolescence. Madonna’s early songs are now “classics”, and nobody under 30 remembers Karen Carpenter, or who Carnie Wilson’s dad was. (I felt vaguely nauseous typing that last bit.)

Speaking of classics and cars, next weekend I shall be test-driving what may be my third automobile. I hazily remember saying a couple of years ago (in this very column) that I wasn’t sure my next vehicle would be a gas-only engine.

I could not have been more wrong. Well, I could have, but it would have taken a lot of work. Recall that my first vehicle was an ’86 Ford Ranger XLT. Thus began my lifelong hatred of Ford Motor Co. I named him Elvis, because he was addicted to a number of expensive fluids such as brake, transmission, injector cleaner, oil; you name it, he needed it weekly.

His original flex plate (without which, you have no transmission, incidentally) still lives somewhere in Paige’s garage. It failed in Sturgis, South Dakota, three days before the beginning of Bike Week. During which, one does not want to be black and in Sturgis after sunset. Getting that fixed, with the tearful phone call to my dad, the parrots and the cockatoo…will have to wait for another column. Suffice to say, it’s a doozy.

Elvis was also the venue where I discovered the consummate joy of replacing drum brakes. Slightly less painful than passing a kidney stone, if I recall correctly. I still have a scar on my knuckle from when I “discovered” the special expensive tool was craptacular and switched to several Band-Aids, two screwdrivers and loud swearing. That did the trick…eventually. No, Elvis was not eventually abandoned by the side of the road…not that I didn’t consider it several times.

However, he did do me a world of good. How many women can say they’ve changed the starter motor in their vehicle while lying in three inches of rushing meltwater? It took three hours to get the feeling in my butt back. Had I not been ice fishing since the age of five or so, I surely would have died (thanks Uncle David, ya masochist).

Elvis was the first vehicle to take me solo from the Midwest to the West. I sat in the bed somewhere in Wyoming and played my guitar for me, some cows, and a lonely trucker who wandered over to say hi (and proposition me, but he was nice about my “No, thanks”). I laid on top of the cab, shivering in a damp, chilly, Nebraska night, watching stars that looked bright and close enough to touch. You don’t get that in the city, and sometimes I need it.

I want to take sea kayaking class, and get a sea kayak. It’s not gonna fit on my bike. Ergo, I need a car of some sort. Thus I polled my friends and lo and behold, someone was willing to sell me one.

The new-to-me car possibility was created when I was 2. It’s a white Jeep J-4000 4x4, with the nifty manual locking hubs (aargh). Apparently, I was born to drive ridiculously large trucks. I am not complaining, much. One of my friends drives an 18-wheeler, so this could get worse.

So, wish me and the albino thing luck. I may have to name it Moby Jeep, and take to saying “yarr” a lot. Alternate naming suggestions are welcomed.

By the way y’all, I’ll be applying to pre-med school this fall, so donations for application/transcript fees/student loans/beer (in the guise of birthday presents) will be gratefully accepted

It's the Future! Invest Now!

2006-07-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

I think black people should pool their money and buy land, upon which they will put casinos. No, really, I’m serious. The Native Americans didn’t start coming around until they found a way to fleece the wasichu; I think there’s a lesson to be learned from that.

Screw the “playing by the rules” and “moral high ground” bullshit. Who does that benefit? Not us, Shirley.

Hell, look at what haoles do to each other, Enron ring a bell? The Keating Five, fracking Watergate? How many non-whites fought at Agincourt, eh? I ask you.

It’s pretty obvious that “working our way up” for the majority is a hollow victory if the poster girl for such assimilation is Condoleezza Rice. Even the spellchecker doesn’t like her.

I think that in addition to that approach, we need to find a way to legally bilk the population for the reparations we’re never going to get anyway. Fark the mule, get the 40 acres.

My casino would be the only thing for miles along a majorly boring stretch of highway, say, Battle Mountain, Nevada. Ain’t a damn thing there, and I’ve been through there many times, wishing there were.

Think of it, lots of black velvet upholstery, mood lighting, and rather than that annoying “ching, ching” noise, I’d have the slots play Barry White crooning “Yeah, baby, pull it oooooone, mooooore, tiiiiiime.”

The gift shop would sell baby back ribs with gratis FUBU napkins. Satin sheets by Sean John, and toilets by Tommy Hilfiger, because really, isn’t that what you want to do to Tommy Hilfiger? Have some more corn.

It would be the only casino in the world where you can get a bean pie. The buffet would be All-U-Can Eat chicken and watermelon 24/7.

On the main stage, Earth Wind and Fire alternate with Snoop Dogg as house band, when they’re otherwise occupied, B.B. King brings the blues home for the evening. All sixty-four Wayans brothers provide the comedy relief in the cabaret. Tina Turner plays once a month (sold out) until the end of time, cuz’ they ain’t no end to Miss Tina.

Checkout is at 4:20.

Think of the profits to be made. The African tchotchke market alone would go through the roof. Imagine the sales of, say, mildly obscene hand-made wooden statuary (carved by convicted Nigerian e-mail scammers) upon which’s base is carved, “I got Shafted in BM, Nevada”. How could anyone resist?

Sure, we need some black people to be respectable, play golf, and wear Italian fashions, however, presenting only one strategy for an entire group of disparate people to wend their way in the world seems to me a poor idea. The fact that the duppy minimum-wage employees would be required to sing ‘Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika’ every morning means nothing, really.

So, let the naysaying nincompoops natter, and join the movement that is sure to sweep the nation by storm. The Bob Marley Memorial Assimilation Rehab Center and House of Ribs. It’s the future. Invest now*.

*Click for link to Badphairy’s Swiss PayPal account. All monies deposited therein to be used for further development of The Bob Marley Memorial Assimilation Society Rehab Center. "It’s the future. Invest now." (Editor's Note: Badphairy's Swiss Paypal account has been frozen by unnamed "officials" until she improves her golf game and obtains more Italian couture.)

Crazy for the Red, White & Blue

2006-06-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

This election year’s obligatory flag burning amendment crashed and burned yet again today, like all its predecessors.

I have some questions about what this flag burning really means.

I was just at Pride last week, and wondered, “If a diva queen sashayed around in a flag Speedo, would that be flag burning, or just flag flaming?” Is one a misdemeanor and the other not?

What if said person had gonorrhea, is it burning now?

Would Blue Oyster Cult have to add a caveat to their song “I’m Burning for You” like “No flags were burned in the making of this song; but the lead singer did scratch his crotch a lot.”

If you live in fire country, and forget to take your flag down before your house burns to the ground, would you have been cited under the amendment for unlawful flag burning? If the fire was an act of (allegedly) God, where do we send the ticket?

Most flags are now made of petroleum products anyway. Do they burn, or just unaesthetically melt over and into whatever surface you had them on? If you melted a flag over your bumper, would it be more or less “patriotic” than a Chinese-made magnetic flag-ribbon?

How does one truly express love for one’s country nowadays? Anonymously send Ann Coulter a jar of Adam’s apple polish?

Speaking of apple-polishers, I suppose we could all get together and send Bill O’Reilly a truck full of falafel with a Nobel Peace Prize buried in it. Once found, it can go on the shelf next to his imaginary Peabody awards.

Why is it that those who seem to profess their love of country the loudest and most shrilly, are also the people trying to write denials of rights into the Constitution? This is the second one, the first being the federal defense of marriage act, which also went down, sans flames (we save flaming for things we like).

Why does the right wing seem to hate our freedom so? Why do their minions do such asinine things as protest at military funerals? Good grief, these men and women died so you could be an asshole in public, so please exercise said right away from their grieving families, Mr. Phelps, you consummate jackass.

Yet, the people elected into office by nutjobs like this are innocently wondering what happened to their poll numbers. Well, Enron, troop armor, half a trillion bucks down the Iraqi drain with no end in sight, loss of focus on Afghanistan, deficit, trimming VA bennies, estate tax, and so on and so on and scoobie doobie doobie.
What we consumers get is a steady diet of Brangelina, TomKat, “cut and run” (this year’s “perfect storm” of Swift-Boatese), and now, “save the flag”.

You know, how about we save the farking country and let the goddamn flag fend for itself until it means something again?

Unhappy Anniversary

2006-06-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

Last week, we marked the 25th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS. Yes, I know, this is a lesbian-only site. As a lesbian, I can never forget watching my brothers fall like ripe wheat before the scythe of a virus nobody understood.

I remember watching friends stitch quilt squares. I remember watching news segment after news segment filled with emaciated, dying men.

I remember people being kicked out of their houses, and being ostracized from their communities because of a prejudice against something unseen by the naked eye.

I remember Ryan White, exiled from his school, because nobody believed “the AIDS” couldn’t be caught from a toilet seat, a sneeze, a hug.

I remember watching John get sick, stop dancing, get better, dance again, get sick again, and on and on it went. I remember him raging against his eventual fate, when he still had the energy to rage.

I remember the day I heard the police scanner report a vehicle over the embankment on Kingsbury Grade. I didn’t know till I got home, that it was John’s way of telling the world he couldn’t stand it anymore.

I remember people wondering if Tom Hanks had flushed his career, by daring to star in “Philadelphia”.

Yes, I remember the 80’s all too well. It’s been twenty-five years, and the pain and anguish lurks, barely beneath the surface.

Today, the bodies are brown, many are African, and we see them irregularly. National Geographic does an AIDS story once or twice a year, ditto other publications. But I can’t forget that Africa is going through that awful bottleneck like we did. In many ways, theirs is worse. They are losing the prime of their population to AIDS; not just the gay men, hemophiliacs and drug abusers, but a huge proportion of the current wage-earning work force.

Additionally, AIDS is on the rise among the poor in America, specifically blacks, Latinos, and women. I worry about that, because without dying “stars” like Rock Hudson, who is going to care?

I listened to the radio remembrances of AIDS today, shortly followed by the minutes of silence for the troops killed. I guess that until we learn better, we will invite death on many fronts.

May those who have gone before us rest in peace. It is truly the least we can do.

In a State of Pre-Everything

2006-06-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

The government wants all of us (of child-bearing age) to believe and behave as though we were pre-pregnant, thus to refrain from smoking, drinking, and regularly take folic acid.

Uhhh, what now? That’s like asking all vehicle operators to consider themselves “pre-accident” thus refrain from driving, boating, flying, and take public transportation at every opportunity. Except for the drivers of public transportation, who should all stay home.

The new assault on women continues. Since our only worth is as incubators, we must always consider ourselves as pre-incubation, natch. Sigourney Weaver unavailable for comment. *shudder*

Just what, I say, what the bloody hell is a-goin’ on? I firmly believe that even on the admittedly rare moments that I slept with a man, I was most certainly not “pre-pregnancy”. Unless “praying to every god I could think of that I wasn’t fertile” equals “joyously fertile and welcoming”.

I think not.

I have never wanted to give birth, and even though that coming inevitability nonetheless evokes nostalgia, I’m not willing to wrap myself in cotton wool (pun intended, Tampax Inc.) in order to escape my fate.

Shall we all consider ourselves, pre-fracture and never engage in sports, or even stand upright? You could fall down, you know!

I thought I was done with this rant, and then this headline pops up: “1/3 of U.S. adults Pre-Diabetic” Oh for Pete’s farking sake, people! If you’re really worried about becoming a diabetic, the first thing you should do is choose your parents more wisely. Zygotes should actively avoid implanting in the uteri of diabetic women, immediately.

Also, get off your fat ass and exercise, and stop drinking soda. That’ll go a long way, right there. I’m not minimizing diabetes. It’s a terrible disease. However, you are much less likely to develop it if lifestyle changes take place first.

Medicine is one place where a stitch in time really does save nine. If you’re worried about it, ask your doc for a fasting glucose measurement. If it’s questionable, start thinking that wheat germ is your friend, and learn to eat broccoli. After a while, you can even learn to feign enjoying eating broccoli.

I’m off to make some organic tacos. Are they organic because I’m a bourgeois asshole? No, it’s because the grocery store nearest my work is an organic one. Are they still greasy and good? Yes, because I can now justify fat-filled avocado lusciousness because it’s healthy, it’s local, and it’s organic!

I’m tired of living in fear all the time. I’m tired of feeling like my body is just going to manifest new problems at random -- which it will, but I don’t want to think about it so much. I’m tired of watching people blame their ills on everything else. You know what? For me, it’s not “the culture.” It’s not anything other than “I like food,” and tasty fattening food is cheapest.

However to escape all the rest of the anxiety, I have decided to just consider myself pre-imminent death. I know, it’s preternaturally precocious to predict my predestined predicament, but I prefer it that way.

Insurance Doesn't Mean Assurance

2006-05-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

I spent over 30 minutes today, arguing on the phone with a patient’s insurance company, then his pharmacy.

The patient has a cough; he is also allergic to codeine. The only effective cough suppressant that doesn’t contain codeine is excluded by Medicare as “a drug we don’t feel like paying for.” Imagine, they paid for Viagra, but cough meds? Those are insignificant, right?

Anyway, I had to call Medicare Part D’s subcontractor (insert long impassioned rant against automated phone answering systems, on hold music, the lack of on hold music, automated reassurances that my call is very important which is ironic since if it were very important I wouldn’t BE ON HOLD!!!!!!), and get them to tell me it was excluded. Then I have to call the pharmacy back and get them to apply for a TAR (I actually have no idea what that stands for. What it means is “we’ll get Medi-Cal to pay”) for the medication. The pharmacy-boy gives me static at this point.

Boy: “Why can’t she just have Robitussin?”
Me: “That’s not a prescription drug.”
Boy: “No, but Medicare pays for it.”
I count to ten, twice, slowly, in French.
Me: “Put in a TAR for the Rx, please, now.”
Boy: “Okay, but…”
Me: “Now.”
Boy: “Okay.”
Me: “Thank you.”

Set phone down with exaggerated care. Pound head against desk until floaty red stars obscure vision. Pick up next chart, repeat.

Actually, the next chart is someone who got the wrong prescription filled, and will now run out twice as fast. The insurance companies dole pills out per day, now, and if your scrip is wrong, you just might end up paying out of pocket, because your insurance company will not cover any deviation from what’s written on the paper. Even if you write them a new prescription, they won’t give the person enough pills to make up the difference for this month.

This isn’t a big deal if your med is cheap. If it’s not, I hope you have a savings account.

Incidentally, on NPR the other morning, I heard the head of some health agency in Seattle say, “In case of natural disaster, everyone should have 90 days of their medications stockpiled.”

Oh, really? So…you’re going to use your position to fight the insurance companies/Medicare who won’t cover “stockpile overrides”? Or are you saying only rich people should be able to have medications during a natural disaster? We should expect a blanket declaration of same to emerge from your office, when? You will lean on your colleagues in other states to enact such policies as well?

This will at some point devolve upon me, of course, because I will have to fill out the inevitable paperwork to apply for the overrides, track them, and solve potential override problems.

It’s like being nibbled to death by worms. Every month, there’s one more piece of paperwork for one more thing, multiplied by X hundred patients. Track this, document that, write this stuff down, keep record of that. Yes, each phone call is less than five minutes. We have over 800 Medicare patients. If I make one five minute call for each of them, that’s 66 hours. Did I mention Medicare doesn’t pay us for phone calls?

I know, everyone’s job sucks. But damn, there are so many enjoyable parts to my job that it makes me sad I don’t enjoy them as much because they are so often overshadowed by Medicare/insurance company shenanigans.

I spent 30 minutes on the phone with an insurance company today…I hope you didn’t.

Where Have All the Comics Gone?

2006-05-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

“I am appalled at the latest [insert outrage] out of the Bush Administration!”

Actually, I’m not. It has gotten so bad that my Outrage-ifier broke. The most I can muster now is brief rants followed by long periods of apathy and brownie consumption. I really should buy stock in dairy conglomerates and Hershey.

I mean, really. Mark Russell has taken the red white and blue bunting off his grand piano. He now probably spends his time playing the accordion naked in the French Riviera in midwinter. Political comedy has finally been downsized by Washington.

It’s impossible to satirize what’s going on. You may have wondered why I’d gotten all insipid and introspective. Frankly, contemplating my belly button is far preferable to contemplating the state of politics, today. (Well, it was until now.)

When George Clooney makes more consistent, reasonable, and useful statements than the fracking Vice President, I despair of ever finding another H.L. Mencken. Hell, another Winston Churchill would be nice.

I think we’re too self-righteous a nation, now, for Jonathan Swift’s Irish infantile culinary suggestions. I have yet to see an actual example of an “I escaped from the World Trade Center and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” t-shirt. That’s too “edgy” now. We’re barely dealing with “What Would Jesus Drive?” (And what color wristbands would he wear, of course. Curse you, Lance Armstrong for starting the latest wave of tacky, petroleum product fashion accessory to sweep the globe.)

We can’t live in the middle ground where watching someone’s pain can be funny, because it’s your pain, too. No, we don’t acknowledge that other people have needs anymore. Anything someone else wants that isn’t what I want, is persecution! Of me, naturally. Affirmative action is persecution of whites, education is slanted against boys, and atheists persecute Christians by simply existing, as far as I have been able to tell.

It’s really too bad the phrase “Me Generation” has already been used. I’d vote for the “Solipsistically Me and Only Me (and possibly my dog) Generation” but it’s too long. “Everyone But Me Should Die in a Fire” captures the proper angst, but again, too lengthy.

See how hard it is to do quality comedy with this material? It’s like trying to make nitroglycerin out of crude oil and wet beach sand.

I think the political system in this country is systematically shortchanging its citizens of quality comedians, by appropriating and mishandling the delicate work of satire, sarcasm, and gallows humor.

Okay, now I’m finally appalled. It feels unfamiliar, but good. I think I shall toddle off to explore some other long-unfelt emotions such as schadenfreude, weltschmertz, and Guinness-lieben.

Prosit.

Badphairy Gets Her Snuggle On

2006-04-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

I think I’m figuring out why Bay Areans categorically refuse to engage in outside endeavors during the rainy months. If one doesn’t take advantage of the only inclement weather we get, how is one sure one will get the requisite amount of snuggling each person needs?

Eight months out of the year, it’s relentlessly sunny, tempting us with all the pleasures of the Great Outdoors. There are big trees, mountains, ocean, lakes, volcanoes, all the views one could want.

I’ve noticed that when I spend a gorgeous day indoors, I am afflicted with a peculiarly big-city-ish sort of anxiety. “I know there was something celebratory going on today I could have attended, had I looked hard enough, or at all.”

I didn’t feel that way in MN, often. There were the particular seasonal feast days, May Day, solstice/equinox, and the obligatory “your people were once Lutherans, so we’ll just get together and eat and not talk about religion for the day, okay” days. Those usually involved a lot of beer once the driving to and fro parts were over. But in general, there were lots of weekends when there was nothing to do but hole up in your house and hope no one you knew fell off a roof, slid off a highway, or electrocuted themselves playing golf.

However, MN has one thing NorCal pretty much doesn’t, which is weather year-round. There are plenty of stormy days during the summer which make it requisite to hole up in the house with your sweetie while you both try to convince the other person that you have no idea how to reset the breakers, should that become necessary.

I have to state at this point, that I was finally certain I was no longer afraid of A: the dark, and B: flashbacks of old Stephen King novels, when I managed to descend into the World’s Creepiest Basement (my duplex in downtown Mpls) without a flashlight, to reset my breakers. When I returned upstairs without being eaten by vampires, werewolves, or industrial laundry machines, I knew the dark held very little fear for me anymore. This would be a cute story had it happened when I was twelve. Sadly, I was twenty-six.

Growing up in a climate with reason for sayings like “Make hay while the sun shines” exerts a powerful pull even when one now lives in a climate that’s sunny 85% of the time. I think that’s why when the three rainy months come, the people around here utter sighs of relief. Finally, a reason to burn plastic-wrapped $12 bundles of wood from 7-11, haul out the thermal underwear, and collapse in an exhausted heap.

“Winter” no matter what yours looks like serves a purpose. It allows the land to rest. In the Midwest, the land is resting from the onslaught of herd animals, farm machinery, and the weather. In California, the land is trying to get a rest from the constant human/vehicle traffic. It’s not just the land, arguably the animals and humans that live here are all trying to get some rest and escape traffic…by going somewhere. Which seems a tad backwards, now that I think about it. If everybody stayed home, there’d be no traffic, and everyone would end up resting. Hmmm…

What? There are several men dressed in dark suits outside who wish to speak to me outside? They’re driving a limo with an Exxon hood ornament? Err, no thanks. Tell them I gave at the office.

In any case, when the rain fails to stop by April 1st, I notice the uber-Californians are starting to get edgy. The thought of all those twee, blaze orange, overpriced, spandex, yoga/biking outfits going to waste begins to light a spark behind their $500 sunglasses. By the time the rain finally does peter out, they will be afire with the desire for ever more dawn yoga, evening rollerblading with Critical Mass, and possibly Pilates at lunch. It’s our version of the Circle of Life, minus the messy entrails and such.

For now, it’s raining, and I’m off to get my snuggle on in case it’s sunny tomorrow. Cheers.

Slick Stalkings

2006-04-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

Y’ever let somebody else’s judgment supersede your own, and then just kick yourself for it, because you knew? I’ve been doin’ that for weeks now, and paid for it. A person I know has been getting squirrellier every damn day, and I didn’t like where I thought it was going.

I behaved as though I believed the hype, and didn’t argue my case more strenuously. That’s the part I am really having a problem with. I was hearing “X could never use violence” and failing to retort “Even though X punched a wall, recently, proving that X knew very well how the process worked?”

While statutes vary, most define stalking as a course of conduct that places a person in fear for their safety.

We like to forget we are mammals. We like to believe we “can’t” do things because, in most situations we choose not to. Unfortunately, the bad-enough situations crop up too often for such self-delusion. Not everyone needs a plane crash in the Andes to spark the idea of eating someone else in the not-so-good way.

We are all capable of violence. We are all capable of violence. We are all capable of violence. Sing it with me, in harmony. Believe it. Now, and only now might the work begin. You, in the back, sing, or I’ll bean you with an icepack (Now we see the violence inherent in the system )!

Stalking behavior patterns closely mirror those common in many domestic violence cases.

I ignored the increasing phone calls, explained away the lack of resolution of the menacing voicemails, told myself that whatever happened, would be verbal.

But I know that even the crunchy hippie dude who gave me my watsu could, conceivably, perpetrate violence given the correct stimuli. What gives insight into character is what violence, used against and in the service of whom, and with what control?

When I went to the workshop on NonViolent Communication (and trust me, there’s enough irony there to build an aircraft carrier) I noted that the construction “I need you to do x…” was labeled a strategy (to get a need met). The need is elsewhere, unspoken. I wonder what the need was, there.

I can’t imagine what need could underlie, “I have a need to punch you in the eye.” Hey, that’s the beginning of a good ol’ country song. Now I gotta work in my momma, and trains, and my dog. Actually, I can think of several need constructions that could encompass that action, but since I’m slightly partisan on this issue, they all come out sounding like “I have a need to be a gigantic assmunch, I have a need to be divorced, and/or I have a need to be in jail.” More on that last, later.

Oh well, we live and learn. I learned I’m not violence-prone, and that people who say they’re not, often are.

Speaking of which. Just as a general rule, I subscribe to “whatever people tell you they’re specifically not, they probably are.” People who say, “I don’t play games” probably have a trophy case full of the heads of previous gamers. I believe what people do, not what they say. I have recently been taken solidly to task for having this belief. I ask but this question, “Who should I believe, you or my own (swollen) eyes?”

Some preacher guy once asked that we judge a person by the content of their character. I have several judgments about the character of a certain someone, and will be paying a bit more attention to my judgments of character in the future.

Diversity: Make it Work for You!

2006-03-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about living in a diverse area is that said diversity is taken into account. I think I get better treatment in a number of ways because of it.

Case in point: I’ve been having painful menstrual cycles since day one. I couldn’t go to the ticker tape (actually office paper) parade the first time the Twins won the World Series because I was curled up around a pillow on my living room floor attempting to figure out how many acetaminophen I could take at once without pissing out my liver. As it turned out, quite a few.

Now, I had told my various doctors about this, and they basically paraphrased the Bible at me. “Almost all women have some sort of pain with their periods/childbirth/existence. Take some aspirin. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Of course, they never bothered to check if there was anything actually wrong with me.

I’ve spent years thinking I’m fat, because even though I’ve managed to get my weight down as far as 118, the dimensions of my stomach never changed. I believed I had no will power, that my “fatness” was my fault.

So when my nurse practitioner said I was just “fat,” I didn’t even react very much (Luckily for me, other people reacted quite strenuously. Thank you, Baby!). I was used to being called fat, and had pretty much given up on all pretenses toward American-style attractiveness anyway. I couldn’t change the brown or the short or the gay, and damn it, I couldn’t even be thin! However, I knew enough medical terminology to weasel a single test out of her.

When I went into a dark room with the ultrasound tech, I had no idea how much my change in community makeup was going to change my life. Because I now live in a place where 30% of the population is black, the diseases that affect black people are now on the radar. In Minnesota, where about 12% of the population is black, that’s too small a proportion (as far as I could tell) to pay attention to, so everyone gets treated according to the Caucasian model and assumptions. Unfortunately, if you’re one of the 12% it means sub-standard care.

The tech showed me my kidneys, which she imaged and measured because the black population has a higher incidence of kidney disease/failure, etc. Kidneys themselves really do resemble the beans, or vice versa. Mine looked exactly like the images of normal kidneys I’d seen in various medical journals.

She had to do some digging to find my ovaries. I wasn’t sure whether we were prospecting for organs or petroleum for a minute there. It wasn’t particularly painful, however, just pressure in odd directions bordering on “really uncomfortable”. I’d been worried about cysts, so getting a chance to look at them and confirm that they looked fine was reassuring.

When my uterus swam onto the screen, it was not so fine. The tech had to tell me what I was looking at. I’ve known what the female reproductive system should look like since I was four, so not recognizing my own was a little alarming.

The tech said, “Oh look, you’ve got fibroids. A lot of black women have fibroids. I see it all the time. This one is seven centimeters. That’s fairly good sized, you know.” In fact, there was one on each side, obscuring my ovaries from the sound waves, as well as my Nurse Practitioner.’s ham hands.

The tech was musing to herself, “Yeah that’s about the equivalent of a five month pregnancy.”

Say WHAT!?! You mean the reason I need to rebuild the front of my bike because I can’t breathe and lean over far enough to reach the handlebars isn’t because I lack self-control? My beer gut is not the result of beer? (Not for lack of trying.) I realized this winter that I’m even avoiding snowboarding because I can’t reach the binding latches behind my ankles and breathe at the same time (While naked I can reach just fine, but it’s just a little too… “invigorating” to snowboard naked). I’ve been preoccupied with losing weight for about three years now, and finding out I’ve been wasting my time gauging by my stomach size is both wonderful and infuriating.

My head nearly exploded with all the restructuring I have to do around my self esteem. I’m still overweight, but I’m not THAT overweight. The fact that my waist measurement and my inseam are the same is a ratio I now may be able to change, for the better. I haven’t believed that for at least fifteen years.

Change. Now, that’s a conundrum isn’t it. I am generally not in favor of having someone rummaging ‘round my innards with sharp steel objects. It just seems like not such a great idea. I’ll watch it on the Discovery Channel. I’ll even study to do it myself, but I have never wanted to be the subject. Then I saw those fibroids.

In about five minutes, I went from “I don’t want to have surgery” to “wheel me into the OR now. I’ll inflate my abdomen myself! Gimme that trocar! Somebody bring me a sterile bicycle pump, stat!”

Things don’t happen quite that quickly, unfortunately. I have an appointment with yet another nurse practitioner in two weeks, and I’ll probably have to say “all the right things” again in order to get anything further done. However, I finally believe something can be done. That’s no small victory.

So, thank you to last week’s NP for reminding me how the lack of diversity can adversely affect care, and a huge thank you to the tech who did my ultrasound for treating me like an intelligent human being with an actual medical problem. It is unfortunate that it took fifteen years to get me to her, but at least I finally got there.

Roto-Rooted: A Pelvic Primer

2006-03-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

I had an image today of my Nurse Practioner (NP) as a small child with her finger up her nose, digging away. Except the orifice in question wasn’t her nose. TMI? Stop reading now.

Okay, so I went to the gynecologist today. I still get a shiny happy feeling when I reply “No” to their query of “Do you smoke?” Unfortunately, they have moved on to new and better things about which to guilt me.

The NP made a huge deal about how much I weigh. Now, seriously, I have a pot belly. Who doesn’t? She went on about how Kaiser has weight loss programs and I thought, “Do you want to be able to see my uterus from a quarter mile away, or what?”

Frankly, I have girlfriends who make loud whining noises when I mention losing weight, and their opinions are more important to me than some Midwestern transplant nurse practitioner who I just met today and perhaps will never see again.

She did the glove thing (oh joy) and started roto-rooting My Special Place with what felt like great abandon. You know, I’ve had my entire hand in one of those before, and the recipient was not complaining as much as I would have been had I not been raised a repressed person (thanks, Mom). Yes, it’s a different context, but good grief! Is there a pot of gold somewhere in there of which I was previously unaware?

At this point, every other physician I have ever had did one of two things: blew me off saying “Well, all women have painful menses so there’s probably nothing wrong with you,” or said, “It’s due to some other body system. I’ll refer you.” Of course when I go to the other specialist, they say it’s probably OB-GYN related and send me back. It’s sorta like the first week of undergrad all over again (business office, registrar, business office, registrar).

She tried to do it too. “This is probably just gas.”

“Look, lady, I have IBS and the last two days have been…interesting. So, I’m fairly certain there’s no gas in there, and no solids, either, so make with a diagnosis or a recommendation for further testing, or leave the room quickly before I find something to throw.”

Okay, that’s what I said in my head. Let’s just say I expressed great dubiousness as to the medical usefulness of her suggestion that Gastrointestinal Inspectors R Us was a place to go, since I had already been there…and they sent me to her!

Her observation was that she could not palpate my uterus at all, despite building a 3-d rendering of a Jackson Pollock original out of whatever is residing between my belly and spine. “Why thank you. I just thought you were minoring in Sculpture.”

I also have this teaching note: Could we possibly add “The Gynecological Exam” to school health curricula? I really think the quality (and possibly quantity) of pelvic exams could be greatly improved by simply telling women what’s going on. I would feel much better knowing what it was doctors are looking for during the exam. I could think “Yes, that is my left ovary! How fascinating” rather than “Good God, how did I miss her feeding a pipe wrench through the speculum?”

There’s a really nasty twisting motion they all seem to use, which always just makes me nuts. I hate it -- no matter who is doing it or what context it’s in. I have asked people I love dearly to stop doing it, immediately. I would very much like to know if it’s completely necessary, and if not, train my gynecologist to never do it again either. This can be done. None of my last four primary care physicians ever tried to approach me with a tongue depressor. Hopefully, none will ever again.

I just want to know. I was amazed to be told that the reason your primary care doc freezes several spots on your torso with the stethoscope is because different valves opening and shutting are heard in different places on the rib cage. Well, now I have more tolerance for said procedure.

I might have more tolerance for various obstetric shenanigans if I knew why or if they were necessary, and I don’t believe I should have to go to med school in order to find out.

However, I do have this to say on Kaiser’s behalf: if you really want something, you can get it. I’ve had excruciating periods most of my life. I also have noticed how difficult it is to palpate my own innards on occasion. Thus, that this NP was having problems with abdominal auscultation was not surprising. What has never happened is that after we had that little meeting of the minds about trying to pass me off to another service, she made sure I knew which thing would be most probable on the “Worry” scale, she bit the bullet and requested an ultrasound.

So, soon there will be an indignant page or two about how awful it is to have someone smear cold goo on my distended belly and press a machine into it. Did I mention my bladder has to be full? How many obscenities am I allowed per page? Y’all better hope I don’t have an ultrasound machine anywhere other than my belly! (Those of you who have had one, stop laughing, I mean it.)

By the way, on the cold goo front. Just a thought for all the people out there giving pelvic and/or rectal exams. Wipe the patient off!!!!! There is NOTHING worse than the lube-sticky-squishiness, especially once one is back at work. Take a coupla moments and clean up your workspace. How hard can that be, we’ve been hearing it since kindergarten! Failing that, at least leave a box of baby wipes (alcohol-free, please) in the room where the patient can find them and take care of it her/himself.

I will be nicer to my patients on the receiving end of the cold goo tube, I promise, and there will be extra boxes of tissue in our exam rooms until I can figure out how to justify spending on actual baby wipes.

I have never, before last week, actually thought of pelvic exams as something I would eventually give, rather than just receive. I think I shall choose to be a very different examiner than my nurse practitioner, and I think there might just be a lot of patients whose care will be improved by my uncomfortable day.

While that is a silver (plate) lining, I still didn’t appreciate her zeal in painfully finding out nothing at all, and the fact that she blamed her failure on my “obesity”. Someone needed a transfusion of tact, and for once, it wasn’t me. I’m going off to rest on my laurels right now, since the other thing I can be said to rest on…needs a rest herself.

Baby, You're the Top!

2006-02-24T11:04:00.000-08:00

I attended a “Top Class” the other week, yes, I’m serious. No, we were not making spinning toys. Well, not necessarily, but I digress already.

Until moving here, I’d never really thought of topping as a specific thing. I assumed a roughly equal exchange of sexual give and receive was what most people did. That may be true, but the sensual landscape is rich and nuanced, here. (Good lord, Microsoft Word’s spellchecker objects to “nuanced”. I’m going to take a sledgehammer to this sorry excuse for a dictionary someday…)

From my perspective, anyone who wants to can and should top and be topped, so a class like this has a universal appeal. There certainly were men in the class -- straight men (or so I assume since at least two had female partners with them.)

I hadn’t been certain initially how hands-on this was going to get. It turned out to be a five-hour lecture. I could have sat there for another five, too. The guest speaker was an incredibly hot woman with frighteningly taut biceps. She was funny, compassionate, and completely open to anything we could ask or volunteer.

My editor asked me if tops are born or made. I would suppose all people are born with the capacity, but not everyone finds and/or nurtures it. I would also assume that social role playing in the heterosexual community might decrease the number of people exploring an affinity for, say, women topping men and both of them liking it. Even if it works for you, to whom can you admit it?

I sat in a room full of people, admitting by their very presence not only how queer they were already, but that we had all paid money to become even queerer. Yes, this place is most definitely home.

What’s truly odd is that in order for this effect to be evident, you don’t even have necessarily to attend play parties or top classes or what have you. Simply just knowing they exist is good enough. “Yes, I could go to a play party with my favorite flogger (object or person, it matters not) but I’d rather lie here on the couch and eat ice cream and think about it” is a perfectly legitimate choice.

But again, I am digressing. Ahem, top class.

I gratefully absorbed the discussion about not having to learn new techniques while under performance pressure; i.e. practice tying volunteers up while they watch TV. They don’t have to try and find it sexy, and you aren’t trying to pull off Eagle Scout level knot tying and a suave persona all at once. Call it a trial run. If you’re adventurous, supply beer, pizza, condoms, and a few webcams, you too could be the next John Waters.

The concept I really found mind-blowing was aftercare. What do you need once the peak experience or scene is over? Do you need cuddling and chocolate, or three years of tax returns and a calculator? Bactine, a footbath full of Tiger Balm and an MRI, perhaps? Apparently if you talk to your partner about these needs, you are more likely to get them met. Astonishing idea that actually makes sense because where DOES one get a calculator at 3am on a Sunday morning?

All of that said, there are as many kinds of tops as there are people wanting to top. We can take on a role for a minute or a day or until death, and we choose it every moment. When I think about topping, I have been trained by someone much more perceptive than me to think of it as service. I choose to add the smile.

A lot of the concrete wisdom in the class boiled down to: be present. Be alive to the possibility of the moment, experience it and let it go. Nobody’s perfect, so let that go, too. Play. Enjoy.

I will be open to that voice. Won’t you?

Herstory, History, Story

2006-02-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

I was doing patient reminder calls the other day, and one woman’s voicemail wished me a happy Black History Month.

I’ve been thinking about blackness and what it means to me, lately. How good it feels to see faces like mine every day. Because, you realize, that in my entire county (in which I spent my first seven years) there were two black faces. Mine and the similarly adopted girl down the road.

Something happens to one’s psyche, when nobody else looks anything like oneself. There’s no one to share one’s physical being with, on any level other than the most shallow, such as, “we’re mammalian primates”.

I have scars from ingrown hairs, and to have someone just nod and say “Mhmmm”… well I was so impoverished for my people that I viewed that moment as a gift. I still do.

To be able to come home and hear someone ELSE rant about how weird white people can be…and get the chance to nod and smile and give reassurance that I never got. “Yes, baby, they’re crazy sometimes. They do use semantics to avoid working on their issues. Yes, I know, I’m sorry, come here, it’s over now.” I know I’m not alone anymore.

I got on a bus the other night, and the driver wanted to talk about the vast number of factors which conspire to keep “us” in “our place”. Had I tried that in MN, I’d have been locked up as a paranoid schizophrenic, or simply laughed at.

Yes, I was spared the “good/bad hair” debates, but it just means I had “weird” hair that nobody knew what to do with. I still don’t know what to do with it, but I have a lead on a barber now, who might be able to help me out. I also didn’t get the paper bag test, but that was because it had been trumped by the one-drop rule.

I almost believe my mother when she tells me the social worker said I was some fraction Latina, because the Hispanics, and especially mestizos, tend to address me in Spanish first, then English. I almost feel bad, considering I speak almost no Spanish. Try me in German.

My mother was once waxing rhapsodic about how she’d “saved” me. I had a moment of clear-headedness (usually a bad sign) and asked, “From what, exactly?” She has always maintained I was adopted through Lutheran Social Services, from Catholic Charities, in Texas. So…you’re saving me from the dastardly Lutherans (I’m a baptized and confirmed Lutheran) too late, evil Catholics (went to Catholic women’s college and don’t regret it) also too late, or were you saving me from being raised by black people? What horrors do you imagine there would have been? I assure you, millions of black babies are raised by black parents every day in the U.S. and even in Africa! Who’da thunk it? Had she stated she was saving me from being raised by Texans, well, I might have bought that. It would have had to have been on sale, however.

Sometimes I wonder, who I would have been had I not been where I was. A friend of mine was telling me she had played the Mother Abbess in her high school’s production of The Sound of Music. I got to tell her about how I was banned from auditioning for my high school’s musical in my senior year. The drama and English teacher’s rationale was, and I quote, “There weren’t any black people in Grease, nor were there any in America in 1950, so don’t audition. Even if you do, we won’t cast you.” I auditioned, and wasn’t cast. Thanks Rolf Olson, you acne-covered piece of shit.

This was of course, after being cast as a Jet in West Side Story. If you don’t recall, the Jets were the white gang. No, I can’t explain it either, but it’s one of those memories that just makes me angry when I hear yet another (white) person go on and on about how there’s no more racism since formal slavery ended. Yes, there is, and it’s everywhere.

I may walk home past a park named for Marcus Garvey, but I can’t ignore the fact that it’s badly kept, dangerous at night, and host to several homeless people. My windows may look out upon MLK Jr. Blvd (may the Universe rest Coretta Scott King’s soul), but I cannot overlook the fact that it’s still a mildly dicey part of town. The only place in the U.S. where MLK Jr. Blvd is in a good part of town is in Berkeley, CA. Luckily, that’s about two miles up the road.

My friend took me to a soul food restaurant the other night, and taught me to look at black babies as the future. I’d never really thought about that before, since all my nephews, nieces, great-nephews, etc…are all blond, and many are even blue-eyed. I think I failed to see the beauty and joy of black, because I never saw it.

I’m learning now, to celebrate my connection to my skin, rather than be quietly ashamed of it. It is less the badge that keeps me out, now, and more one that lets me in to a world I suspected existed.

Yes, I’m aware that this is supposed to be a column about being gay, but I don’t get to leave my skin at the door. I’m gay, true, and black, and Hispanic and short and outspoken and all sorts of things. They are not separate: one bleeds into the other. If gays are 10%, then 12% of that 10% is black, too.

Apparently, Samuel Delany wrote a really good book about being gay and black and a bunch of other transgressive identities. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that I had never heard of it, until I made significant contact with a gay-identified black man (last week).

The more adjectives you layer, the fewer people can identify, until one is back down to oneself. I hope I never reach that place again, because it was desperate, painful, lonely and exposed.

That raw bleeding place is what I’m salving when I stare into eyes darker than mine and drink deeply of what I find there. Someday I hope to form a scar over it, but right now I am content with bleeding a little less, every day.

Do me a favor. I know most of you are white, and I know most of your history. Take five minutes this month and go learn something about black history. Google Benjamin Banneker, Guion Bluford, Queen Mother Nanny, Crispus Attucks, Marie Daulane, Daniel Hale Williams, etc.

I know, y’all don’t care, because “black culture” is just rap music and thuggery. You know what? It’s not. That’s just what the media wants to tell you, and many in the majority culture want to believe because it’s easy, tame, safe, and dismissable.

I expect better of y’all. Do me proud, and post me back here. Happy Black History Month.

Playtime With Phairy

2006-01-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

I had no idea living in the Bay Area was going to be THIS much fun. I went to my second play party last night, and you know, I could get to liking this.

When I walked in, the hostess was being given her birthday spankings in the middle of the downstairs space, which centered on a large, padded black leather table about waist high. When people who know how to spank well, spank…it’s educational and not just a little hot. There was even some bare ass action during the spanking, which was errr… aesthetically attractive. Among other things.

Upstairs contained a very large four-poster curtained bed with a large mirror hung above it. Depending from the ceiling were several very thick steel chains which ended in a leather body sling (with attached pillow…stylish), leather hand straps, and a padded leather T bar, that could be raised and lowered.

Completely dominating one wall was an eight foot high black wooden X with heavy duty steel eyelets screwed in at precise intervals. The rest of the walls were hung with skeins of rope, handcuffs, neck cuffs, gags, whips, cats, you name it. There was a selection of canes in a brass can in the corner, and two full size stocks hung on the wire mesh railing that served as both wall and stair rail.

The place wasn’t a dungeon per se, it was elegant in a very spare, modern way. It was warm, but not overly so. Candles had been placed strategically, lighting up walk space like the stairs, bathroom, and kitchen. The food was California healthful erotic; fruits, cheeses, morsels of cake (birthday and otherwise), all cut small enough to be easy to feed to another. The fridge contained only drinks, but of every conceivable taste, alcoholic and not.

It was a friendly group of people. Imagine, if you will, having 20 of your good friends and their guests invited to a nouveau “dungeon” and letting everyone have at each other…for your birthday. It was a lot more fun than that sounded.

I saw my first flogging. It was…so much more artful, careful, deliberate, and sexy than I’d imagined. I feel slightly betrayed by Pat Califia, really. The floggee was cuffed to eyelets on the X and then what ensued was more a dance/seduction with pain elements, than pain in and of itself.

The flogger was a perfectly lovely lady about my age with great taste in footwear, incredible breasts, and a delicate whip hand. I asked her how one gets someone to be able to take increased pain, and she obligingly laid out her strategy. At this point I was given an assist by my buddy/wingman (we take turns at the winging…among other things) who informed said dominatrix that I probably could take a closer look at her cleavage. She thought that was a fine idea, so I took my glasses off and got some serious snuggling on. Bodice-diving is a wonderful hobby, I recommend it to everyone. Just remember that you can breathe through your ears, if you have to.

Since I needed to return the favor, and my wingman was having some issues with actually conversing with our host. I turned to said host, who was sitting behind me and asked her if I could rub her back. She agreed, but wanted to walk through the place first, and see how everyone was doing. I was just stunned that she agreed, so I waited.

She came back minus her leather shirt (still wearing a shirt…made of fishnet), turned a chair backwards and sat on it, bracing her arms. I started to knead her shoulders, and she stopped me, slid herself further toward me, and then braced herself again. I talked to her as I traced patterns of varying pressure from her neck to her waist. Well, at first I talked to her, then I sort of lost myself in the feel of her skin, the interplay of muscles, and the silky black fibers of her hair. This was fine, because my wingman was sitting in front of her and took the opportunity to have a conversation while she was mildly distracted.

She was so smooth, it was like the skin zamboni had just gone by. She had one of the finest backs it has ever been my privilege to manipulate. That girl had not only it, but every other pronoun, goin’ on. It did not help at all that I knew just how pink her ass got when being authoritatively spanked. I was so blissed out that I failed to see the next thing coming.

Earlier in the night, I had noticed another woman, with whom our hostess seemed quite taken, that I wanted to touch as well. She was tall, pale, and red-haired, which combination usually leaves me weak-kneed. Our stunning host looked up from my backrub as the other approached, and asked me if I would be so kind as to volunteer my services for her friend as well.

What am I gonna say, “No”? Come on, now. The only answer has to be “Yes, of course, happy to” (oh dear GOD, breathe, just breathe). At my first play party, I watched my friend’s wife just casually ask if she could stroke someone. I had simply copied her on a whim, and wow, does that work or what!

I had (what I believed was) a Nordic princess under my fingers for the first time, and damn it, I acquitted myself well. When I went back in the house to get her e-mail address, she hugged me hard, stroked my back, and held me a long time. I need to know her better. I asked her when she earned her first leather, and she couldn’t remember. Be still my beating…uuh…heart, yeah, heart…right. Ahem.

She had a stainless steel fixture holding her hair in a coil of copper fire. Oh shit, I’m starting to sound like Mercedes Lackey. If I start talking about gryphons, and/or antique polearms, please shoot me. Where was I?

I frankly have no idea how any of this happened. I was there, at the party, minding my business, then suddenly I’m touching two women who make me all crazy inside. What is that all about? When did I gain such powers of persuasion? What happened here? Why was I not previously informed?

I may not know what the bloody hell is going on, but I have to admit; I like it. It’s now 5 am and I’m still awake and dumbfounded. I got their e-mail addresses. Both of them. If I died right now, I think I’d be okay with that. My new year started out quite blissfully and seems to be proceeding apace. Maybe John Lennon wasn’t an idealist…

A Solstice Homecoming

2005-12-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Solstice everyone! Tonight I got one of the greatest gifts any expat could get for solstice, the feeling of home. My friend Stacy invited me to her friend Fang’s house for her celebration.

I walked onto a porch festooned with prayer flags; in the windows candles burned, shaded by randomly hung tapestries.

The walls were covered in bookshelves, books of every imaginable kind, vintage and subject were shelved according to no order. Why? Because this was Chaos. She even answered the phone “Chaos”.

There were men dressed in skirts and/or velour in the living room near the food stuffs. There were all sorts of people I’d like to get to know better. A really funny guy named Bumblebee, a ton of other people whose names I’ve forgotten. One guy had a brand of the Chinese symbol for peace on his arm. I asked if he had a Cthulhu on his ass, and he nearly showed me. Lots of computer people, some BDSM people, just people of every sort except the kind you try to avoid at any cost.

They even had a holiday tree, which was a sculpture of chicken wire, xmas lights, and pulsating neon fiber optic lightlines programmed to flash in a particular sequence. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, and perfect for the venue. It was built mostly by a very slim Asian man in a yellow turtleneck and a dog collar.

There was a fire pit in the back yard with someone simultaneously playing two drums and a didjeridoo. Fang handed me a flask and said “single malt”? I grinned and asked what version. She replied “Laphroig, 12”. Oh dear god, that stuff had a kick to it. She then spit a mouthful on the fire to welcome the ancestors and poured the dregs in the mud for Mother Earth. Then twenty people simultaneously said “Huzzah!” I nearly fainted.

The place reminded me of a place I used to frequent in Minneapolis called “the hippie house”. This place had more order, oddly enough, but the minute I heard a faint bootleg of the Dead playing on the sound system as I browsed through “Toward a Critique of Foucault” I knew I was “home”.

I was so grateful I just about cried. Meaka had wished me a Happy Solstice earlier in the day, and I just missed her intensely. I’d been talking to another pagan friend about Mayday in Minneapolis, and realizing there ARE some things I miss. I miss the wheel of the year, every season in its place and celebrated there.

Tonight, I got a little bit of that back, and it was lovely. I could even sit and watch the fire, knowing I wasn’t going to freeze to death doing it.

I got to geek out and be outgeeked, and bond with people just because we were us. I’ve missed that.

Sometimes I think I’ve been an outcast so long I’ve grown unsure of what to do when shown welcome. I’ve forgotten how to leap since that 3000-mile leap that got me here. I’ve grown to mistrust my judgment, given the last two disastrous dating experiences.

I’m finally in a group of relationships that are all based on communication, imagine that! It’s not traditional or monogamous, but it’s a hell of a lot healthier than the “traditional, monogamous” crap I’ve been dealing with since….er…..puberty. [Except the professor, she was neither traditional nor particularly monogamous, but the rest of that story should go to the publisher, first. Y’all will have to wait]

I had stopped looking for other geeks, and all of a sudden I am flush with geekery everywhere. I had stopped looking for somewhat sane polyamory, and then found it.

I think I’m going to stop looking for fiscal sanity next, you never know, maybe I’ll get it. Unfortunately, this underscores just how inappropriate the Bible is to my life. What works for me is “Don’t seek, and ye shall find.”

So celebrate what you celebrate, but remember it all started with the fire burning deep in the night, hoping the sun will come back tomorrow.

Merry Solstice to ye! Huzzah!

Badphairy’s Computer Odyssey 2005

2005-12-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

I usually let my computer take care of itself. I defrag it every so often and remove old files once every five years or so. I still image my drive at least once a year, and use anti-spyware goodies.

However, I set up all my scheduled cleaning activities more than three years ago, and
can’t always remember what the settings were. Thus, when Norton’s CleanSweep popped up, helpfully asking to delete unneeded files, I let it. Since I was in the program, I decided to do some basic unscheduled upkeep.

It has a little button that will let you locate all your allegedly “duplicate” (dll.) files. Dll files are the thingummies which actually run the drivers that allow your software to control your hardware. They also allow software to run itself. This is as close to a technical explanation as I can give without sounding like C-Threepio.

Now, according to CleanSweep, sometimes there are more than one copy of a specific dll file that is sitting on your hard drive, taking up space. CleanSweep would like to help you with your problem.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ACCEPT SAID HELP.

I did, and it was not pretty. Luckily, I did allow Norton to make a backup of all the files I planned on deleting. Then I deleted them. Then the fit hit the shan.

All of a sudden my modem didn’t work. I couldn’t fark, download my e-mail, upload my writing, nothing. This is the sort of happening that makes the end user break out in a cold sweat. Not only have you done something stupid, you have no idea if you’ve done something irrevocably stupid. If it’s not irrevocable, when you go to your geek friends for help, prepare for several minutes of loud laughter once you have explained what you’ve done. *sigh*

I went to use the Windows troubleshooter. Windows Help wouldn’t load. Why? The dll file that runs it had been deleted. Hey, weren’t these supposed to be duplicate files? Nope, CleanSweep deleted the only copy of about half my dll files. Most of my hardware refused to work fully, some of it refused to work at all.

I remanded the souls of all Norton programmers to the least comfortable place I could imagine (Salt Lake City) there to dwell in pain and teetotality in their mother’s basements forever and aye. Polecat barstids.

I managed to Explore my way into Norton’s backup file. Unfortunately, it required a version of itself to decode said file, which I could not access from outside the program shell. Grrrrrrr.

I gave up and tried to see if some of my games still worked. They did, thankfully. I talked to a friend with computer skillz the following day. We decided that the most important part was the modem, since if I could get that running, I could scream for help all over the Net. As she was downloading the software I needed to run my modem, I found the correct path through the Norton shell to restore all the deleted files from the backup I’d made.

Huzzah! Success, and without much ridicule. One cannot ask for more if one is dumb enough to do this in the first place.

So, Lessons learned:

1. Do not delete dll files! The amount of space they take up is minimal, and the amount of trouble caused by their lack is legion and frustrating.

2. If you are going to delete files whose last three letters (after the dot) are unknown to you, either don’t do it or make a backup.

3. Figure out how to use your various backup programs. I have BackWeb, which allegedly has my latest build on file. Unfortunately, said file is located on the Net. Without a modem, it might as well have not existed.

4. Cultivate geek friends! I can NOT stress this enough. I didn’t actually need my friend to solve this problem, but her calm, reassuring logical mind on the other end of the phone line was very important to my ensuing success.

In conclusion, when a file loads itself and asks helpfully if it should do things, tell it no, and go back to what you were doing. You’ll be glad you did.

Panther Pussy -- Not in a Good Way

2005-12-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

I tried to ignore the Panthers cheerleader story (which is basically every straight man’s dream, cheerleaders having sex with each other *gasp*), but it’s gotten too good. Now some unrelated chick (jealous?) is suing one of them for punching her? (Yeehaw, catfight!!)

First off, you interrupt two actual lesbians having sex in a bathroom stall, and you’re probably going to get more than one eyeful. I think interrupting is inexcusable, especially without a warning shot or at least a wicked phlegmy throat clearing.

Even more egregious, the punchee is suing for $15K? How long has she been going to Joan Rivers’ plastic surgeon? 15 thousand dollars is an awful lot of money. I have seen nowhere any evidence of broken teeth, or as is more likely, fractured acrylic nails.

I’m sorry but no self-respecting lesbian would sue for this much money for getting punched once, unless it involved major reconstructive surgery afterward. In fact, the alleged victim Melissa Holden admits “It swelled immediately and turned purple.” Not, “my eye fell out onto my cheek and I had to use duct tape to hold it in while I drove myself to the hospital”. She obviously does not understand the concept of the “bar fight,” nor the concept of “bragging about the bar fight.”

No, no, the whole point of getting in the way of someone’s fist (dumbass thing to do if’n ya ask me), is to brag about said swollen purple trophy the next day. I mean, come on, you’re a lesbian. You can always say “Waal, we were at the Applebee’s and this stupid frat boy’s looking at my woman’s ass. He got me once, here in the eye, then I cleaned his clock, repaired it, reset it, and sent him on his way back to clock-obfuscation class, and what’s more I’ll repeat said actions the next time I see him again, too!”

As long as your girlfriend agrees to swoon and dimple every time you say it, it’s free beers for you for the foreseeable future. The court case may be for 15k, but a story like that can last a lifetime if managed carefully.

No, this idiot Melissa person is obviously not just a femme, but a straight one. I’m learning to love the gay femmes; the straight ones, not so much.

I can’t believe there are this many straight women who are this clueless about lesbians. This is obviously not a scenario in which any of these women are lesbians. Why? Because they are obviously oblivious to the rules. What rules? Come with me, children, Mama’s gon’ tell you some very important information.

Badphairy’s Rules of Lesbian Sex and Barfighting ™:
Rule 1. Do not talk about Lesbian Sex in Bars (unless men are paying you).
Rule 2. Do not interrupt Lesbians Having Sex in Bars.
Rule 3. Someday It Will Be Your Turn.
Rule 3. Following Rule 2, Will Make Rule 3 More Probable.
Rule 4. No Matter What Happened, By Tomorrow You Will Have Won and Orgasmed.
Rule 5. Rule 4 Does Not Change.

Now, do you see how these three women are not lesbians in any way shape or form? No one has declared herself the winner thus all three are LOSERS. There is a completely un-bragged about black eye (the horror). And NO MEN ARE PAYING FOR THIS MASTURBATION FODDER!

We simply cannot allow this situation to continue. The only thing we can do is an all out media blitz. So, find the cutest lesbians of all body types, and videotape them having sex. Mail them to me, and we’ll saturate the media with images some lesbian (namely me) is getting paid for…to once and for all attempt to educate the American public on the subject of real lesbians having sex, vs. straight girls attention-whore-mongering.

Or I’ll just end up with the largest collection of actual lesbian pornography in the world. What’s not to like? I’ll charge for ahem “entry” to a website of some sort, and we can use the money for “things beneficial to the lesbian community”, yes that’s sufficiently vague.

In any case, send me video, for I need to get the images of these three drunken straight girls behaving badly out of my mind.

Thank you in advance, for my viewing pleasure.

Two Little Words: "Gay Agenda"

2005-12-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have been struck lately by two words that seem bandied about fairly often, but for
which I fail to find a definition that agrees with its context. The phrase of which I speak is the “gay agenda”.

Now, the reason we’re going over this in part, is that we’re going to gear up for the midterm Senate elections over the next year, and I want to talk about what this phrase means now, so you’ll know when you hear it used later. Just let it wash over you, it’ll be okay.

The “gay agenda” is notoriously difficult to pin down. The American Heritage Dictionary returned “Search Results for “gay agenda”: No documents match the query.” Definition is likewise not found at Merriam Webster’s site

As a last resort, I tried www.urbandictionary.com and got an answer, sort of.

“A conspiracy theorists lame idea that all gays are out to get straights and convert them. Unfortunately all the gay agenda really is, is a program to promote understanding of homosexuality. Or as to put it by 1 gay man like myself TO BE LEFT ALONE. Christians obsess on the gay agenda constantly.”

Example (given in definition) :
“Homophobe #1 “Did you hear about the gay agenda’s plans to take over Washington?” “Homophobe #2 “OMG if that happens we'll all have to fuck men.”

I greatly enjoyed the sarcasm, but since the author of this definition is already preaching to the choir, I tried another tack. I entered “The ‘Gay Agenda’, list” into Google. It returned “Results 1 - 10 of about 105,000 for The "Gay Agenda", list. (0.29 seconds)” I waded through the first page of results. Did I find a more explicit definition than UrbanDic?

Nope. So, I applied some random skull sweat. What would the gay agenda be? Well, we want to vote. We can do that. Excellent.

We want to be able to gather in public places. Hmm, well, in adult groups we’re pretty safe, alone not so much (RIP Gwen Araujo). Many gay youth have prevailed in lawsuits against schools that tried to restrict them forming clubs that are tolerant of gays, gay parents, and hopefully the musical as an art form. (We can always hope.)

Those schools who banned all school clubs so they could specifically ban a gay school club, have found themselves providing the rest of the nation a textbook demonstration of nose-cutting for face-spiting purposes. Heckuva job y’all, please do keep it up. Many of our children are learning valuable lessons in hypocrisy and Pyrrhic victory from your sterling example. Thank you.

Apparently, a bunch of us want to get married. Because I am known as the world’s worst predictor of modern trends, I probably said a decade ago, “Never in my lifetime.” I am overjoyed to announce my complete and total wrongitude, phallaciousness, and general mistakeliciousness on this issue. As of publication, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Washington will perform same-sex weddings under state aegis. Nearly half of the remaining U.S. states explicitly outlaw same, however, these are probably all unconstitutional. When the Supreme Court will take the case, and whether individual rights will matter much to that body at that time remains to be seen.

Other Supreme Court cases either pending or soon to be…Canadian-wed gay civil rights. U.S. citizens suing to get their foreign same-sex spouses citizenship, gay Arabs applying for refugee status in the U.S. (from U.S. supported regime(s), Mormons hitching their wagons to the “redefining marriage” star under the “three or more consenting adults” claim. Oh, the cans of worms explode with delight. I find it a tad odd that religious righties like Pat Robertson and his ilk that claim gay marriage is a slippery slope to marrying puppies, are having their prophecies fulfilled by even more right-wing fundie Mormons, yet they blame it all on the Gay Agenda.

Let us join hands and collectively say, “Huh?”

Statistics show we want to adopt kids, our partners’ or just kids in general. Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Florida ban adoption by gays. Florida also continues to have the absolutely worst record of foster care and adoption oversight in the nation. I guess if the choices are “would you like orphan children a: drowned or b: adopted by gays, the State of Florida urges you to support drowned toddlers. I really, truly wish I were exaggerating:

Lena Cumberbatch, 36, of 5957 Wentworth Circle S in Jacksonville, Florida was bathing Latiana when she pushed the baby's head under water while at least two other children watched her murder the baby. The baby died from drowing and blunt head trauma. Cumberbatch had a total of 8 children in her home, four were foster children and four her own ranging in ages from 2 months to 10 years old.

Keith Cumberbatch, her husband, was not at home during the incident but was later questioned by police but not charged. Lena was lead from the home in tears just after the toddlers death and taken in for questioning. All seven remaining children were taken from the four bedroom home and placed in the states care.

However, Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas all rejected gay adoption bans. Two steps forward, one step back.

Strangely enough looking at the issues: adoption, marriage, citizenship, and free assembly, these all look like civil rights, don’t they? If the issue walks and quacks like a duck, why bother calling it a red herring like the “Gay Agenda”?

Civil rights aren’t “special” rights if you don’t consider yourself particularly special. They’re for everyone.

We have the same agenda that everyone in America has, the very definition of the dream, to spend our lives in liberty to pursue such happiness as we can. If that’s the Gay Agenda, not only is it doing just fine, I’ll happily pursue it to the extent I’m legally allowed.

Girlfriend or Foe?

2005-11-29T09:52:00.000-08:00

Girlfriends Magazine has come out with the 100 top places to practice the oft-illegal art of Living While Lesbian.

It came as no surprise to me that half the Top 10 are west of the Continental Divide. Of the remaining five, only two are nominally below the Mason Dixon. Lighten up Southerners, you’re losing valuable lavender $$$ as you bolster your reputations as being the least-friendly states in the Nation for an ever-growing proportion of the population (i.e. everyone not a WASP or BASP).

San Francisco comes in ninth out of the Top 10. I think this score should be lower. The median home price of nearly half a million dollars is more important than whether there is an LGBT Community Center, unless they also rent out rooms. Besides, isn’t that what the Castro is supposedly for?

Face it, SF is a place where it seems easy to be gay, but isn’t. Gender preference aside, the #1 issue partners fight about is MONEY. Given that housing, utilities, taxes, etc are more expensive in A: California in general, and B: the County/City of SF proper, ergo people gon’ fight about money more often.

There are at least 20 gay bars in the City. Do you know how many “lesbian” bars there are in SF? One. Count ‘em, one. Uno. Singular. It’s the size of a postage stamp, is way too loud, plays “It’s Raining Men”, and is full of egotistical 19 year olds who ask questions like “Are there any attractive lesbians anymore?”

The drinks are small, overpriced, and you half spill ‘em trying to weave through a gyrating mass of flab with stainless steel accents gyrating off the beat. Never mind that it’s the same Standard Dance Beat that has been played in clubs apparently since Java Man invented the first cocktail by spearing a beaver which fell into a lake which he subsequently drank from while retrieving the dead beaver (beavers later became scarce and were replaced by olives). The lake had a salty rim due to evaporation and probably fish urine. Voila, the first margarita. He probably called it a “mar”( Java man not having a jaw suited to complex speech, or so his wife tells us).

Aren’t you glad I don’t write historical fiction?

Anyhow, thankfully there is a lovely little dyke-friendly, POC-affirmative enclave just over the bay in Oakland. The rents are lower, it’s marginally cleaner, and there aren’t as many gay men around, saturating our neighborhoods with tony gyms (in which everyone sweats but no one works out for long) and dog paraphernalia boutiques.

I think Oakland deserves a much better ranking than 49th. Iowa city got a better rating. There are LESBIANS in IOWA CITY? Okay, fine, all three of them love it. It still shouldn’t have scored above Oakland.

We have gay ward representatives in Oakland. Note the “s” at the end of representative. We have gay-friendly Congressional representative Barbara Lee. What on earth could have convinced “Girlfriends” Magazine that LaCrosse, Wisconsin is a better place for lesbians to live?

Search me. Unless it was that pesky murder rate. Well, rest assured, most murders in Oakland are of young black men shooting other young black men. Problem solved (yes, that is sarcasm).

In any case, I think “Girlfriends” needs to rethink its priorities a little. I didn’t put the rankings into Excel, but eyeballing them, the list seems heavily weighted toward the NE and Midwest. Oddly weighted too. I have a hard time believing Phoenix, AZ is a better city for lesbians than Chicago, IL.

I’d like to propose a few criteria for the magazine:
“If I break up with my current SO, will I ever get laid again? (In Tahoe, no.)”
“Are there “gay” places to socialize in that do not depend on alcohol sales?”
“How many bookstores per capita are there?”
“Can my partner and I fade into a crowd when we’re not at home?”
“Will we have trouble explaining our “situation” to our children’s schools?”

I think there’s more to rating “good places for lesbians” than taking the “best places to live list” and sorting it by percentage of self-identified gay people who live there (or however they did it).

If Oakland is that low and SF that high next year, I might even write to Girlfriends and complain. Where do you live, and how comfortable have you been there? Comments are a good thing!

Badphairy Needs a Holla Back

2005-11-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

I was skimming through Craigslist the other day, looking to see if anyone witty had written an ad in the women seeking women area.

I came across a post titled “Are there any more attractive lesbians?” Really, people all over the world should know not to give me openings like that. I happily tapped out the following post in response:

“Why no, no there aren't. The last five attractive lesbians were all terribly disfigured by a play-party accident involving a disposal, a life size cardboard replica of Ellen Degeneres, and a 220 HP outboard motor allegedly made by Evinrude.

All of the single lesbians left are overweight, hairy, shower-challenged Wicca-worshiping former Deadhead skanks who will reject you first because you're not one. Please go straight.

Love,

The Community”

I got one reply that said I was mean, but funny. Another person, with a well-calibrated sarcasm detector, thanked me for adding a giggle-coda to her day. A third replied below,

“My friend and I were actually having this discussion the other day. Why is
it in S.F. that one must be butch, mullet woman that doesn't shower and has
hair everywhere...looking very dog like. Why?”

That just makes me very sad. What kind of twisted malcontent says the same thing that straight men have been asking me for years? I used to think that “butch” meant that you weren’t trying to attract men. That’s it, that’s all, well, the shoe comfort was a bonus. Apparently, even among lesbians, we must always dress and behave like we are trying to attract men, for fear of turning off women. Small-minded and judgmental women, but women nonetheless.

I don’t get it. Are we so self-obsessed that we simply don’t realize our own prejudices and thus write ads like, “Are there any more attractive lesbians?” How should we answer such insipid, harmful negativity? “No, they heard you were coming and left town”, “Yes, but we’ve been hiding them from you”, or best, “There are millions, they just hear your vapidity coming and hide from you and you alone. We’ve all talked about it and decided that some as dumb and narrow-minded as you deserves to spend her life alone, wondering not what’s wrong with her that she is alone, but what is wrong with everyone else.”

I think that’s actually a serious problem in America right now. We are more interested in other’s faults than our own. We look at a world that is rapidly getting very tired of us and say, “What the hell is wrong with you guys? I rock, you all want to be me and you’re just jealous. My shit smells like roses and my bombs feel like a good shiatsu massage. The problem is that your peasants are revolting and your leaders are a bunch of dumb yobs.” Then we wonder why no one will sit with us on the playground.

Just a thought, if you find yourself thinking, “Why is everyone I know so dumb” it might also behoove you to ask, “Why do only dumb people hang out with me?” This person desperately needed to ask herself this question.

I could have responded with any of the above comments, but I ran the risk of sounding like just as much of an ass as I said I was decrying, so I didn’t. Even if this person was a guy just trying to piss me off, giving attitude back wouldn’t help my cause any. Most of you know how many years it took for me to figure that out. Well, lesson learned. See my reply, below:

I don't know, I've never noticed that effect. Most of the lesbians I "notice as lesbians" are, but that just means my gaydar for femmes is probably miscalibrated, not that there aren't any around. If you see a beautiful woman in heels, lipstick, and a short skirt, do you assume she's a lesbian? If you saw a dirty straight hippie chick, would you think she was a lesbian?

I think this is more a question of "to what visible attributes do you assign the value 'lesbian', and how could you change the way you see people, so that you see femmes as lesbians”? I think that's a much more useful way of looking at it, than blaming butches for how they look, just because they don't look like someone you want to fuck.

The only person you can change is you. If you don't like what you see, change how you see things, because ain't nobody gonna change for you.

I could have been more pointed, more insulting, more a lot of things. But I really did want to give the person something to really think about. I would be very interested in what y’all think about it too. Please feel free to comment on this one, because I’d like to hear some other thoughts on this issue. I never thought I’d say this but…holla back, girls.

Jesus Saves...Allegedly

2005-11-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

Christian groups are wary of HPV vaccine because they say it might “advocate promiscuous behavior”.

Just what the hell? I notice that every year our global medical aid is diminished by a million here, ten thousand there, because groups that lean Christian conservative are continually lobbying to restrict said funds.

Don’t believe me? Would you believe such a rag as the New York Times? (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102305E.shtml)

President Bush has again decided not to let the U.S. give money to the U.N. Population Fund, which helps women give birth…after they family pays $42 for such “luxuries” as bandages, antibiotics, and thread (!). Otherwise, African women and babies die, in horrible pain, unclean situations, and all for the want of the price of a pair of jeans.

Even if these women survive, they often develop fistulas (holes) between the vagina and anus or urethra, leaving them incontinent. What man would want an unclean woman back? How would she care for his children? Why would he want an unclean wife? For the number of goats it would cost to get his “old wife” (who may be in her 30’s, heaven forfend) sewn up, he can buy that cute thirteen-year-old. Conserving the nuclear family, yup, that’s how it’s done.

The African gentleman in question can’t, of course, avail himself of condoms because they’re terribly expensive. Why? In part because the Global Population Fund and other organizations have had their funds restricted by “compassionate Christian conservatives” who don’t believe in distributing condoms. They don’t believe in providing any kind of birth control to anyone. So, they are partly responsible for the woman who showed up at an African “hospital” with lethally high blood pressure. For the lack of a $13 dose of medicine, she hemorrhaged and died on the operating table, along with her 12th child.

Bush’s loyal minions don’t like the Population Fund, first because it has U.N. in its name, no doubt. Secondly, because it offers birth control options, as well as prenatal and birth care. Thirdly, because it offers the same medical care to women in China, and they don’t like the One Child Policy.

Fine, go ahead and put tariffs on Chinese goods then. What? It makes all your Wal*Mart cronies cry? Well, then, let’s just let African women die in childbirth, because Lord knows, THEY won’t be contributing to the RNC anytime soon.

People on the Right wonder why black people don’t support the Republicans. BECAUSE WE’RE NOT STUPID. We can connect the dots between “letting Africans die as a result of our global health care and family aid policies” and “letting African Americans die as a result of our national health care and family aid policies”.

We can also figure out what policies are simply asinine, such as the HPV vaccine controversy (why don’t we teach the controversy on contraception?). Christian groups are saying “we don’t like the HPV vaccine because if there’s no threat of STD’s, then girls will be having sex.”

The mind boggles, really, it does. First, what seven year old lining up for a shot in the arm thinks, “Hey, I’m getting a tetanus shot, how about I go impale myself on the first pointy fence I see?” Second, I certainly haven’t noticed people getting negative TB test results applying for a vacation stay in Russian prisons.

Third, I also don’t see a rash of children on AIDS drugs creating brothels because they’ve already got AIDS, so why not? This compassionate Christian conservative is not logic, nor is it compassionate, conservative, nor particularly Christian. It’s idiocy and it should be called idiocy.

Cervical cancer is a very real threat. Giving a child a shot to prevent them from getting it is not going to lead to Hugh Hefner suddenly getting 8000 more girlfriends under the age of 10. It’s going to lead to better health for young people, lower costs to our health care system, and may possibly save the fertility of many young women. What’s not to like?

So there won’t be as many costs to young women AND young men to having sex. I can live with that. 4092 women in 2004 died of cervical cancer. How many Religious Righties did it take to ensure that many more women will die in childbirth this year, and possibly die of cervical cancer in the years to come, all because in their compassionate conservatism ,they want to tell us who Jesus loves the most.

Who would Jesus save?

Chicken Not-So-Little

2005-11-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

We live constantly on the edge of disaster, and we don’t prepare for it. This is not a Chicken Little screed about the sky falling right now. This is a wake up call.

Look at Pakistan, New Orleans, Mississippi, Georgia, Indonesia, Guatemala, Cozumel. What we should take from these lessons of looting, damage, and despair?

Society is a very fragile thing. Ours resides (according to a Florida nurse interviewed on NPR) on gasoline, ice, and electricity. As long as people have those things, society will probably survive, although the vast majority are still exploited by the powerful.

In less fortunate places, society resides in houses, schools, hospitals, clean water, and the promise of some profit after the bills are paid. Without those things, governments degenerate into civil strife, under which the vast majority are exploited by the powerful.

Think about it. Gasoline, ice, electricity. Without electricity, it’s very hard to create or store anything. Without gasoline, whatever you’ve created and stored can’t get to where it’s needed.

Interesting that all three of these things upon which our society depends, are made of non-renewable (as far as we know) resources. Electricity is mostly made from coal, natgas, or nuclear. Gasoline is allegedly made from dead flora and fauna of the past, and fresh water isn’t made form anything. It’s just here.

Yes, I know you think that water is everywhere right? Just go look at the ocean, it’s bleeding huge, right? It’s also SALT WATER. We cannot drink it, use it for manufacturing, or cool nuclear facilities with it.

Two days without a steady supply of fresh water WILL cause looting of stores. Five or six days without food, or refrigeration of food will do the same. Ten or twelve days without gas…and there won’t be any food or water if there isn’t any electricity to run the water pumps or ice machines. If the sewer system is compromised, as is often the case, all safe water has to be looted, flown, or trucked in.

The people you saw in New Orleans looting beer? Those were the smart people. Beer is at least a clean source of water, after the Evian is gone. In the Middle Ages, water was so bad that children were weaned from milk (of some mammal) straight to “small beer” (i.e. their version of 3.2), because the water was likely to make them sick.

I’ve lived on top of three large earthquake-spawning faults, and you know what I’ve noticed? No planning whatsoever. There are no parts of the city (that I know of) that are designated tsunami safety zones, or earthquake emergency zones. There are no coordinated efforts to designate which highways are most likely to survive and thus used as evac routes.

There’s no general edict for health care workers to secure their families and then REPORT TO WORK. There’s no call for residents to have a place they can flee to when the Big One hits (again), and it will.

If you live in the Midwest, don’t feel smug. Check out usgs.gov, go to their ShakeMaps, and look at the continuous number of small earthquakes around St. Louis. The last time that one moved in a big way, the Mississippi ran backwards, destroying almost everything in its path and settling the river into new beds.

Take a moment to plan. Do you know where the evac routes at work are? At home, at school? Do you know where you’d go if you had to pick up and leave RIGHT NOW? Do you have copies of birth certs, SS cards, medical records in one case, ready to go?

I’m not trying to scare you, the pictures of disaster over the last few months should have been enough. Don’t be one of the people who didn’t plan, even though they could have. A couple jugs of water and a box of energy bars could make all the difference.

We live in a wonderful, diverse, technological society. However we rely dearly on that technology. Take a fresh look at your camping gear, home preparations, and knowledge of the roads between where you are, and where you’d like to be if something goes awfully wrong. The problem with Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf, is that sometimes, they’re absolutely right, but we’re so tired of hearing them, we never actually hear what they’re saying.

The best outcome possible, is that you’ll never have to use you preparations, but you will sleep more soundly knowing you’ve done all you can.

The Boy Scouts may be a homophobic organization, but their motto is a good one: Be Prepared. If you prepare, you’ll be able to roast Chicken Little over your propane stove on your way out of the city. Bon Appetit.

Virginity Explored

2005-10-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

I’m reading a thread full of mostly straight men discussing virginity. It’s hilarious.

Some of them have sarcastically decided that since penis + vagina = intercourse, then all gay people are therefore virgins.

I sorta like that idea. I’m not celibate, I’m claiming my virginity.

However, since virginity as a concept is probably about ownership of children, I wonder that the word works for us at all.

I’ll back up. Virginity, as I understand it in the cultural sense, is a way of ensuring that the man’s family can safely regard a child as the legitimate successor to their worldly goods, if any. It’s a continuation of their genetic line, although why this is important to people has always escaped me. I feel it’s enough to load a child with your cultural and emotional baggage. Genetic baggage as well seems like overkill.

Since (if we weren’t previously married and had children as a result of that relationship) we make a conscious choice to deal with the exhaustive process of alternatively making children, we are not necessarily continuing our genetic line (adoption, surrogacy, anonymous donation) nor do we contend that a non-genetically related child is unable to inherit, I don’t know that virginity is a concept that works very well for lesbians (gay men, feel free to comment).

The culture certainly doesn’t seem to support it. In my experience, many lesbians absolutely refuse to sleep with “virgins”. Unfortunately, this attitude leaves out the only true method of “reproduction” we have that will increase the lesbian community. Alas, most lesbians have straight children, regardless of gender of the child.

Virginity is a negative concept, defining a stage in a woman’s life by what she has “not” done. Lesbian community should be about celebrating what women “have” done.

Not only should we not care whether a woman is “untouched”, we should optimize the person who has already discovered her sexuality, and hopefully has learned a couple of things we don’t already know, just to keep it interesting.

I’m enjoying watching my fellow internetters engage enthusiastically in the discussion, but I think many of them may be missing the point. If one is old enough to consent, and has found someone who makes one’s naughty bits tingle, then virginity is not necessarily a noteworthy state of being.

Sex should be safe, legal, and frequent. Laws, cultural mores, and Mrs. Grundy should be egalitarian and quiet about whether Slot B prefers Tab A or Slots C, D, and E. Folding and spindling optional

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

2005-10-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

I went to Oakland’s celebration of National Coming Out day last Sunday. Lying on my back in the middle of the lush grass of Frank Ogawa Plaza, I stared up at the impossibly blue sky and basked in the sunlight.

I usually don’t attend these functions, since I came out in 1990. Back then, it was a huge deal. You came out once and dangit, you stayed out and stayed gay!

Now…not so much. People come out, go back in, come out for visits…it’s changed. However, I tend to forget that there are young people coming out every day, and older people living a constant coming out process.

One of the speakers was an FTM who said that while the ability to pass as a straight guy was alluring, he kept coming out anyway. What bravery, and sheer stubbornness.

A very young man discussed his experiences at Boys State, where his very presence as an out gay man changed some of his homophobic peers for the better. (I tried VERY hard to overlook my realization that at least 35% of his content consisted of the word “like”.)

The first openly gay (and black) elected official in Oakland spoke about the importance of being out and involved. Oddly enough, he looked like a Baptist preacher, which he was not.

Also present was the openly gay (and black) representative (and her girlfriend) from the district just southwest of mine.

The reality of Oakland vs. the myth is very odd. This is actually a thriving community of people in all walks of life, not just some urine-soaked crack-smoking thug ghetto playground.

It’s okay to be political here, and if that is your métier, you are encouraged to try your hand at getting elected. Sometimes, it even works.

Simply by refusing to hear his “no” the citizens of Oakland have chosen to draft a man we all respect to run for mayor next year. According to the Chronicle, Ron Dellums didn’t really want to run, but feeling the hope of the audience that had gathered to hear his decision, he put his name into the ring. The crowd went nuts.

It’s all about feeling the love. When that kid came on stage to talk about Boys’ State, I could feel how nervous he was from 100 feet away. He started to talk and nobody stopped him, booed him, nothing; we listened. His voice got stronger and his story more focused as he realized he was being heard.

I sat on that grass and listened to the voices of gay people talking about success and pride. I looked up at City Hall, on which steps the stage was set, and loved my adopted city just a little more.

There IS a here, here, and what a lovely here it is. Hope you had a Happy National Coming Out Day, too.

Vive la Peanut Butter

2005-10-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder just what it would take to make a noticeable difference in the world? I do. I think it’s some terribly large, difficult thing that would take my whole life, and for which I would only be recognized posthumously.

I now think I’m wrong. Sometimes, it just takes seeing a problem for what it is, not all its ancillary problems.

Remember the Nestle baby milk fiasco of the mid-90’s? Basically, makers of baby formula were telling African mothers that their products, rather than breast milk, created healthier babies. Notwithstanding that this is simply false, it also failed to take into account that many African women are/were illiterate and thus cannot read the directions, they had limited access to clean water with which to mix formula, and the price of formula was often equal to half or more of the family’s income per month. All this led to badly mixed, unclean, or diluted formula, which led to babies starving.

There’s now a WHO/UNICEF code to prevent such things from happening again, which is the traditional way of remedying a problem; pass a law.

However, the law does not relieve many of the problems of infant-feeding in poor countries. Most milk-based formulas spoil easily and are difficult to get to places that lack refrigeration. They’re also still expensive. Africa’s women are also largely still illiterate.

Enter two French daddies, who feed their young children an usual European breakfast food, toast with a hazelnut-chocolate spread (common brand in the U.S. is Nutella).

These fathers are also scientists and noticed a curious thing about their kids’ bread spread. It had the same nutritional profile as many baby formulas.

So, they invented a peanut butter-based version, packaged it pre-mixed in a foil wrapper, and called it Plumpy’nut (they’re French, what can I say).

It doesn’t spoil, it adds pounds to children as well as milk-based supplements, and it’s cheap. Medecins Sans Frontieres ran a relief campaign in 2000 that helped only a few thousand children. This year with Plumpy’nut, they will feed over 30,000 children in one country (Niger), and more across Africa.

Thinking outside the breast; it’s a good thing. It’s also culturally sensitive, since much of West Africa relies on “groundnuts” as a protein source. What’s a groundnut? It’s in the same family as the goober pea, or peanut . There are several different species, but the entire group can be generally referred to as groundnuts.

Somewhere, the Great Circle of Karma triumphs yet again, as we can credit George Washington Carver for inventing peanut butter in the first place. A man that turned down a huge salary to work to benefit his countrymen (Americans), ends up saving uncounted future babies from starvation on the very continent from which his ancestors were kidnapped into slavery.

Ironic in a good way, eh?

So, merci beaucoup Monsieur Lafayette y la peoples Francaise, for the Louisiana Purchase and for breeding smart scientist daddies who read bread spread labels, rather than wondering how on earth they could make a difference. Perhaps they are right now saving the life of the next George Washington Carver. Vive la France!

God Works in Meth-terious Ways

2005-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Remember the guy who shot up the Atlanta courthouse in March? Brian Nichols then escaped and hid out in a local woman’s house. He later gave himself up to police, Ashley Smith claimed, because the power of the Lord compelled him.

Apparently, God helps those who help themselves, and birds of a feather snort together. Smith apparently had some crystal meth lying around, like every good Christian woman.

Ironically, to me at least, Nichols first asked for marijuana, but Smith didn’t have any. Thus forever dispelling the myth of the “gateway drug”.

What I don’t get, is how anyone thinks they can attribute something “to God” if it was obviously in some way also related to illegal drugs, which we all know, are of the Devil.

I am quite aware that Genesis says all the animals and plants are ours to use, but I ask you, from what plant is crystal meth harvested?

I wasn’t aware the aforementioned substance had such criminality-quelling assets, were you? Perhaps if people at the Superdome hadn’t been relieved of their unmentionables, there might have been less violence? I certainly would have been happier to see quotes like “Oh God, the Frito-Lay muggings. Awful. There was an eye-poking incident with a with a Slim Jim, too. I swear, the cheese stick on the side saved his sight. Luckily, the heroin addicts had needles or Grampa’s insulin supply would have been useless.”

We’re an equal opportunity society, right? Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves. Why can’t we admit that perhaps drugs aren’t all bad, and God’s Mannequin in Rome kicking middle-aged gay men with no employment history or job experience into the streets isn’t an unmitigated good?

Crystal meth is not exactly what I have in mind, but think of the taxes we could get from marijuana sales alone. We could have a Katrina a week, power our vehicles with burning Washingtons, and still run a surplus. Praise Gawd!

We would have to establish a Strategic Brownie Preserve, but how hard could that be? I’m not seeing a lot of people saying “No! You may not bury chocolate waste in our county! What would happen if it sprung a leak?”

I’m thinking, if there is a God, he/she/it/they is terribly frustrated that we can’t figure this one out on our own. I imagine people pray (mostly when the teenager is an hour over curfew) “Oh God, please remove drugs from the world.”

I imagine God, as programmer, whacking his/her/its forehead area and yelling “It’s not a bug it’s a FEATURE!”

Anyway, I guess our lesson for the day is, always keep a little pick-me-up on hand, in case your home is invaded by a suspected rapist/murderer with a penchant for gunning down stenographers.

Lottski Bullshitski aka "Those Emails from Loving Friends"

2005-09-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Do you have “friends” that forward you every insipid e-mail they get that is anti-“your political position”? Actually, you can substitute any labeled group. Found an anti-lesbian article? Send it to Badphairy, I just bet that’ll make her day!!!

Seriously, I’m sick of this shit. I have conservatives in my family, and I don’t go out of my way at least once a month to forward them an e-mail that not only implies how little I respect their viewpoint, but that my entire e-mail list knows, too.

I know, I know, “Turn the other cheek”. Well, A: I’m not a christian, B: I only have four cheeks; they’ve all been used, and 3: How does passive aggressively saying nothing and being pissed for weeks add depth and value to the “relationship”?

I’ve been ignoring this idiotic tendency of hers for years. Nothing has changed. Isn't the definition of stupidity "doing the same thing repeatedly and each time expecting a different result"? Do I want to consider myself “stupid” by my own reckoning?

No, I don’t. I also don’t want to passively accept crap like this.

Like what?

Good Morning! Here something to piss of my liberal friends!

Great way to start off, eh?

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

Who is advocating the opposite, again?

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

Yes, that’s why we’re here, one of them keeps sending me dumbass e-mails like this.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

Oh, excuse me, I have to go finish my application to the Big Government Touchy-Feely Snap-On Tool House in the Sky. Seriously, who the hell writes this garbage?

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing.
Americans are the most charitable people to be found and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

Families named Bush, Skilling, Kennedy, Lay, Hoover, Hilton, etc, take note. What, you didn’t mean them? Oh, gosh, sorry.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

Awww, isn’t that cute, someone translated “The World Is Flat” into Russian, just for her.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

So, the staff of Terri Schiavo’s nursing home is next on the chopping block, right?

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

Let’s see, Martha Stewart? Doin’ fine. Keating Five, all now out of jail, have big-screen TV’s. My friend’s son who was arrested? Got to spend six years incarcerated on my dime, and use all his time studying and lifting weights. Wow, what “hard” time. He even had a color TV to watch.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

Odd, when this person’s husband was unemployed, this was not her attitude toward him. Oh, riiiiiiiiiiiight, she forgot to add “situation is totally different when it’s oneself or one’s mortgage-payor who is out of work.

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American
means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness which, by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

Huh, I was under the impression that this person emigrated here from Russia because there were more rights here. If that’s not the case, hie your ass on a plane with your kids, baby, and tell me how bad the U.S. is from Siberia, mmm’kay? Otherwise, leave the parsing to the people born here.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!

And again, darlin’ you are at best, a naturalized citizen. You still speak English with a noticeable accent. Why don’t you learn to speak the language well, since you are so sure it is now “yours,” and you have appointed yourself as the Language Police? Wow, as someone from a place with the KGB, doesn’t the idea of people policing what language you speak seem…I don’t know, as if you have no concept of the past of your actual country of origin?

(lastly....)

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!

This person has totally espoused the bullshit sense of entitlement that so many “Ugly Americans” evince. “Now that I’m hereski, everyone do it my wayski.”

You know, Fuck You. This is part of what makes this country suck, and you are proud of it. How wrong is that? This isn’t even one generation of “I married a guy, inherited his country, now I get to gloat about how badly it treats people, because it makes me feel better about my childhood.” Imagine what pains in the ass their kids are gonna be.

If you have one or two people who forward you crap like this, tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not what you consider discourse or discussion, and if they would like to send it somewhere, send it to their recycle bin.

Imagine all the people, sharing the world in peace. With “friends” like this one, I don’t see it happening.

BTW, these are the same people who invited me to do another Faire with them but said it was their group’s policy that cross-dressing isn’t “allowed.” Actually, no females were allowed on stage at that time, so cross-dressing was an accepted device for the stage, and if you’ve ever seen “Orlando” you’d know other people did it, too.

I think it was just another ploy to get me into “proper female clothing”. Having gone rounds of that with my mother already this year, I passed. Additionally, I have spent a considerable sum of money on my Faire costume, and coming up with as much or more for female costume seemed prohibitive.

Спасибо ни за что, суку.

Some Call it "Berserkley"

2005-08-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

I went on an adventure this morning. I took the 43 bus into Albany, where I imagined I hadn’t been before.

As it turns out, the client lives right near the little hip Solano Avenue district I pass through and shop in when I housesit for another family.

The lady and her ten year old daughter showed me the little house and yard. They have a trampoline AND a hot tub. I shall be in bliss.

I was repeatedly jumped on, slobbered over, and barked at by their Springer spaniel. The eighteen year old cat just lay on the back of the couch and purred for about an hour, solid. She returned my whisker rubs with cat drool, as I expected.

On the way back, I hiked up to Half Price books. I hadn’t eaten, so I stopped in at an Indian restaurant and got watermelon juice (?!), garlic naan, and veggie samosas. I didn’t eat the naan, because with my previously frozen tikka masala, it’d be dinner. But I occupied a bench in front of a nail parlor and had a quick samosa moment.

A pair of fiftyish ladies exited a Honda, sniffed the air, and made a beeline for me. I had my headset on, so I didn’t really pay any attention until one addressed me. “What is that?”

I squinted up at her and explained, “It’s a samosa, you know, potatoes, peas and spices wrapped in pastry and deepfried. ‘S really good.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“That Indian place right next to the café there on the corner about a block down.”

I don’t know that they said thank you, and frankly I didn’t care then and don’t care now. You wanna interrogate me rudely? Ask me what I’m eating; I’ll be happy to tell you.

I did notice that those ladies spent less than 15 minutes in the quilting shop, came out and headed down the block toward the Indian restaurant.

I spent a lovely hour or so browsing the bookstore, and managed to get out of there without spending more than $20. For me, that’s a raging success.

On the bus on the way into Berkeley, I saw this little older black woman dressed in classic 50’s “bull dagger” style. She was the cutest thing. We had a short conversation until we got off the bus downtown, and she cracked me up several times.

I finished an earlier transaction at the library. Last week I’d thought I’d returned all my books and went to check out five more. Turned out I’d forgotten one, and owed late fees. I don’t really think I was supposed to be able to check anything out, but after I paid the late fees, the clerk overrode the hold and let me off with me new books and a reminder to find the other one. It was, of course, under a pile of stuff I’d checked under about five times. *sigh*

California is such an odd experience. I’m beginning to understand why all the patients think everything is negotiable, because it kinda is. The boy at the convenience store who sells me beer, doesn’t know the exact prices. So, I give him approximately what I feel like paying, and go away.

I’m beginning to think taking acid in Berkeley would be overkill. It’s just so damned surreal the way it is that I don’t need to adjust my attitude to feel like I’m on another planet. A vastly superior one, by the way.

Child-free But Still Paying

2005-08-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

The future has arrived. Finally, the number of single-person households, and multiple-person households that lack children, out number the married-with-children set.

All my life, I’ve been told and shown how the majority gets to set the rules. Well, now I’m in the majority and I want some changes made.

Let’s start with the metal tube I’m currently trapped in, hostage to someone else’s choices of yestermillennium.

Because my lovely country has utterly failed its citizens in the provision of basic health care for all, this months worker strike is being brought to you, and unfortunately me, by the mechanics’ union of Northwest Airlines.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve hated NWA management for years. My sympathies are solidly with the strikers and unions. However, sitting on the tarmac for an hour with Rosemary’s Other Baby tenderizing my kidneys every four seconds does slightly reduce my pro-union fervor.

The union members say it’s impossible to raise a family on their income. That may be the case, but perhaps we as a nation should think more seriously about whether raising children with one’s income is the best way to spend it.

In fact, I’m devoutly wishing that the father behind me, who to his credit is valiantly and unsuccessfully trying to keep his 4 year old from kicking the back of my seat for the next three hours, had more seriously considered his decision to reproduce.

There are ways around this that, due to nouveau majority status for the childless, I wish airlines would consider:

1. Designate one non-stop route per day to the X most popular destinations, as child-free.
2. Charge parents extra for children under 7 (about the age where glaring works almost as well as a dope-slap)
3. Charge a small premium for child-free flights, too. Right now, I’d pay $50/flight not to hear “When are we leaving”, “Are we there yet”, and “WAAAAAAHHHHH, I WANNA SIT BY THE WINDOW” (repeat 12 times), ever again!

A note to parents of children under seven years of age. Please invest in the biggest package of foam earplugs you can find, when buying a public transport ticket for your drape ape. Offer them to all the people within six rows of your child. It helps the rest of us stifle the need to wrap our fingers around the neck of your anklebiter and squeeze real hard, after the 15th piercing shriek of frustration brought on by another unsuccessful attempt at “I open the window, Daddy.” Think of it as your little investment in world peace.

I’ve spent considerable time and money to ensure that my life is child-free, only to be assaulted by other people’s children every time I leave the house. Do I also need to offer retroactive vasectomy discounts out of my own pocket? There seems to be a large social need for same.

If you are a parent, the rest of us are aware that to you, your evil spawn are the cutest things imaginable. Do please retain the realization that to the rest of us, if they absorb their education and potty training, just might make the cutoff demarking “decent cannon fodder” for our next dumbass war. (Don’t go thinking I’m setting the bar low, either, that’s the highest it goes, pending an advanced degree by said child.)

My self-supplied earplugs have now expanded, allowing me to hear myself bitch. Ahh, relief.

There really should be a scientific study of exactly which piping, childish tones are liable to set activate homicidal fantasizing in unrelated adults.

Haven’t these people heard of Valium? Had I not checked my supply with my baggage, I’d offer.

Speaking of drugging children, I’m advocating a return of laudanum to pharmacy shelves. That’s what happened to children in the early-to-mid 20th century; they were simply opiated into somnolescence. Why did you think those nostrums were known as “Mother’s Helpers”? Mother didn’t take them, the kids did. Again, I was born too late for any of this kind of fun. Who were the idiots who decide this was a bad idea, and where can I spit on their graves?

If you don’t want to drug the kids, fine, bring enough opiates for all the adults within a 60 foot radius of your demon seed. I’m certain your largesse will be appreciated. You may notice that people no longer glare daggers at you in-flight, and you are no longer surreptitiously tripped on your way to the bathroom.

I remember “family” television, the “family” hour, “family dinners” and all that happy crappy. You know what? I ostensibly grew up in a “family”, and got none of that, except for the year I moved out when I was 13. There is no overwhelming “American* Family” anymore.

Let’s make new room and rules for the new majority. The American* single person needs some space, now that the kids have flown the nest. I think it’s about time, too.

*For the purpose of this article, I am referring only to U.S. citizens. My apologies to Canuckians and the populations of Mexico, Central, and South America.

Jerry's Dead, But I'm Still Grateful

2005-08-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

I still have audio tapes. Very few, but many of them are Grateful Dead bootlegs of past shows. They are not illegal, despite the fact that they were recorded by an audience member with a microphone.

This is due to an idiosyncracy attributed to Jerry himself. He wanted people to be able to share the music among themselves, thus the band allowed bootlegging. The only stipulation was that it should remain a trade system, with no money changing hands.

This evolved into the roped off “taper” sections of the audience, just in front of the soundboard. What struck me was being able to hand security my tape gear while they frisked me (veeeery lightly).

At the Autzen show, the chick frisking me was kinda cute, so when she finished I batted my eyes at her, “You want to try again?”

She growled “get out of here, “ and swatted my ass as her co-workers laughed. I miss Dead shows. There was a feeling I just can’t describe, but it’s akin to spending the day with 6000 best friends you never knew you had, and everyone’s favorite band came to play just for us. It was the best feeling in the world, and nothing will ever replace it.

That’s why I hold on to those tapes. I can’t bear to give up my memories of those happy times. I have a tape of a concert I was at. I think I can hear myself yelling. It’s pretty cool.

However, I don’t know that many Deadheads anymore, now that we are scattered hither and yon, searching for just that groove again. New tapes are hard to come by, and my old ones are slowly deteriorating.

Recently, I just simultaneously orgasmed and started to cry, twice. Why? Because as an inveterate Public Radio listener, I just found out that almost every Grateful Dead concert has been posted to the Internet.

Shows from when I was an embryo are available, but not the last show I had tickets for, which was never played. Jerry died in Chicago that summer, his last show was July 9, 1995.

To all the people who stood in the sun holding a hot boom mic, thank you. Kudos to the site and all who have had a hand in creating it. I have gotten a little of my peace back, knowing there’s a little bit more Jerry left for me to discover, one download at a time.

If there ever were needs for the Internet to fill, it is this, possibly the least of these, for which I will be forever grateful. The Dead’s massive oeuvre can finally be in the hands of the majority of his fans, old and new.

I’ve got a miracle, every day.

Poor Me, aka "Badphairy's Fed Up"

2005-08-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

One of my bosses has been stuck in Poor Me *Whiner Mode* for several months now.

Note to self: Things Not To Say To Employees:

“What should I do with this?” (tosses phone message at me). Umm, gee there, Sparky, I dunno. How about you figure it out because you, not me, are the freakin’ doctor, hmm?

“You are all here to help me.” Oh? Do you need your ass wiped as well as kissed and then nose-polished, there, Supreme Being Whom I Adore For No Apparent Reason?

“None of you are working as hard as I am.” Really? Well, since you returned from a Hawaiian vacation less than 72 hours ago, what exactly do you think the rest of us were doing while you burnt your pale, speckly, cellulite ass in the Polynesian sun? I can rule one thing out for you, WE weren’t lying on the beach when not enjoying some bloated boogie-boarding.

“See? People calling in with health problems is how I get screwed over. Everyone’s out to get me, and this is how they start.” Really, I mistakenly thought that AS A PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN, you were supposed to address people’s ongoing health problems. How exactly am I wrong about this?

Gee, I’m sorry, but I was under the impression that you jumped in your late-model white convertible every evening and motored home to your luxurious home in the Oakland Hills, with the pool and music studio and your wife and child. While I take a shuttle (I no longer can afford a car) home to one cockroach-infested room in Oakland that harbors my… cat. Yes, I feel so sorry for ya, there, buddy boy.

I am constantly being placed in between you and everyone else, in a way I don’t appreciate.

You tell me over and over again you don’t want new patients. You then tell E, “Sure, when you have new people coming in, call and see if I’ll follow them.” So they call, begging me to get you to accept a patient when I am certain you won’t. Because you told them in person to call, they won’t accept my “no”. I give you the message and do you just call them and say “No?” Why no, you don’t. You don’t contact them at all, leaving me to make up some excuse.

When the R's call over the space of a few weeks, asking you to take their friends, do you respond? No. Is Eve pissed? Yes. Do I feel like defending you? No. Do you ever call her at all? No, you gave me back the note alluding that I should call her and refer them to Dr. R. Coward.

If you don’t want patients then tell them no. They don’t listen to me, because for the last five years, regardless of the receptionist, they have known to get your last word because it probably won’t be “no”. Blaming me for this does no one any good, and it’s not my fault. The same is true of people just “stopping in.” Contrary to what you seem to believe, I don’t call the patients in the morning and ask them to come in and surprise you just to see the look on your face.

I’d be happy to help you draft a letter to your patient population:
"Thanks so much for being my patient, however I do have one request. Please do not refer your friends and relatives to my practice. I have too many patients as it is, and would like to make sure that your wait time for an appointment, does not grow any larger."

You seem to view every new patient as a sin against you, perpetrated by me, even when you admit it wasn’t my “fault”. Jerry N’s wife was accepted by you six months ago. Yet you threw a fit about her, then threw your appointment book at my desk when you realized you had done so saying, “You got me.” I did not GET you, you got yourself. You then blamed N for getting you to accept Jerry in the first place. All this could have been avoided had you simply said, “No.” Yet it’s blamed on me.

This demonstration not being sufficient, you returned not three minutes later to give me a long and impassioned speech about how “they” get you, and how “they” will continue to get you until the end of time. And I’m supposed to do….what about that? I don’t even know who “they” are.

Because your persistent complaints seem to be, “I don’t want new patients, nor half the ones I have; I work more than anyone else on the planet; it seems to me that you would like to not work as much, see fewer patients, have a smaller patient load, and more days off. How about you just admit that and change your hours, rather than being all stoic until you fly off the freakin’ handle again?

If you truly feel that you have the worst lot in life on the planet, that the whole world is out to get you, and that you are powerless to do anything on your behalf, well, I’d call that depression and seek help. Oh wait, I did. Perhaps it’s your turn.

I know it worked for three years to yell at B til she cried once or twice a month. I’m not B, so let’s work out a different solution.

Kumbay-fuckin-a.

Football Fans Shouldn't Marry

2005-07-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

I'll admit I didn't write this. But I found it horribly amusing and wish I had. Read on.

You know, I'm not a racist, but I shouldn't have to
live next door to those football fans. Why is it that
if I don't think they're normal, I'm considered some
kind of hatemonger?

Sure, you tell me it's their business what they do on
Sunday afternoons in the privacy of their own homes.
But what about my property values, when they neglect
their yard work and house upkeep? Why should I, who
pay taxes and vote, be subjected to their gaudy
banners and flags, spreading their propaganda in full
view of God and everyone? "Bengals Parking Only"? Not
in MY America!

If they would just do what they do in private and keep
to their place, it would be one thing, I suppose. But
they're all over our TVs these days! I can't go to the
mall without seeing them in their "pride" clothing.
There are entire stores devoted to them now! Why are
they trying to force their lifestyle down my throat!?

I wish someone would sponsor a Constitutional
amendment that forbade these football fans to marry.
What kind of life would it be for children growing up
in the homes of these sickos? What values will they be
taught, that is, when the "parents" can drag
themselves away from their gridiron perversions long
enough to warp their little brains? Do we really want
this country to be overrun by a generation raised by
football fans, indoctrinated into their alternative
lifestyle, schooled in their arcane statistics and
rules from birth?

Let's face it. Jesus walked on water, not Astroturf.
It's Adam and Eve, not Madden and Eve! I'm not
advocating we round these people up and deport them or
anything - like I said, I'm no bigot! I just don't
think there's room in America for them to be so
flamboyant and in-your-face with their agenda. Their
moral fabric is just inferior - it's all games with
them. That's not the work ethic this country was
founded on!

In closing, this is the land of the free, and all men
are created equal. But this is also one nation under
GOD, not one nation under the Jumbotron. We owe it to
our children to keep marriage between two people who
aren't football fans. Our families, our future, and
thousands of years of tradition are at stake. If we
allow these football fans to make a mockery of our
most sacred institution, what's next? People being
married by Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas because
they like rock and roll? Marriages staged by producers
for reality-based TV shows designed to grab high
ratings? Where does it end?

I hope you'll join me in praying for these football
fans, that their souls may be salvaged and their
Sundays returned to their God-given purpose. And I
hope even more than you'll unite with me -- and the
rest of mainstream America -- in denying them the
freedom and the rights that we all hold so dear.

Yours in Christ,
K**** B******
Fellow American

Blood Matters

2005-07-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Hurricane, tornado, and wildfire season is upon us yet again. While there are many ways to aid others during this time, I’d like to focus on just one.

Give blood.

I know, I know “We’re lesbians, we can’t.” Not so true anymore. I just checked the Red Cross Eligibility Guidelines and found that they have narrowed the risk pool considerably. Such that lesbians who have not had sexual contact with gay men or Hepatitis A/B carriers, are probably good to donate.

Here in California, many people make autologous donations prior to scheduled surgery. While this is a nice gesture that may reassure them, it doesn’t put an overall dent in the need for blood. It’s the unscheduled needs that are suffering, currently.

Imagine having that once-in-a-lifetime car accident, and being put on hold while your body starts the mending process. Bodies care not for the schedule of the surgeon. A wait of a week for blood can make some serious changes in what the surgeon has to work with.

We also can’t just let someone bleed out because the hospital’s out of the red stuff. Hospital personnel sometimes are pressed into service, but they should be able to have their full attention on their job, not their need for some cookies and juice after a draining.

I know it sounds so “Lion’s Club/Moose Lodge” but blood drives are necessary, and they’re not working very well. The U.S. is running on a day-to-day supply of blood, sometimes requiring LifeFlights just to deliver a bag or three of precious cells from the donation site, to where they are needed.

See, what happens when the blood supply is short is that patients waiting for procedures that require blood are asked to reschedule for the future. Hoping of course, that either the momentary snafu will ease or more people will donate.

Imagine finally making the agonizing choice to have your knee replaced, because you’ve decided the pain is just too much to bear anymore. Then imagine being told you’ll have to wait at least a month, if not longer. People react so poorly to “Well, you shoulda called last month if you want this to happen next week.” I wonder why.

I know, I know. The blood center staff asks a lot of impertinent questions, makes you wait and serves generic “sandwich cookies” instead of Oreos. But think about it: who do you know that’s had an emergency operation at least once in their lifetime?

Now imagine if they hadn’t gotten it.

Yes, you can donate money, time, or in-kind services, but the kindliest service of all is to simply grin and bear the needle in your arm.

Forget the “Gallon Club” or “Lifetime Donator” crap. Give one pint, just one. Then go up into the maternity ward and look at the future you’ve just made an investment in. Be it used for their grandparents, parents, teacher, soccer coach, or just the convenience store owner that sells them 6 licorice whips instead of five for a nickel, it’s their life you’re enriching.

We often ask what it is we can personally do to make the world a better place. The answer is flowing through our veins.

Editor’s note: To reinforce Badphairy’s point, whole blood cannot be frozen. It has a refrigerated shelf-life of slightly more than 30 days. Platelets are the component of blood that helps the clotting process. Essential in emergency surgery, they have a shelf life of only five days. (More blood facts)

Poor, Pitiful Me(n)

2005-07-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

National Public Radio (NPR) reported this morning that numbers of males born in the U.S is declining faster than predicted. It got me to thinking.

The U.S. is going to seem much more hostile to men over the next twenty years or so. Fewer of them will be around, due to a combination of factors, including: prisons are packed full of males, medical training is majority female, and women are coming to control more and more of the positions of power. It’s even worse if one is white and male, because you can add “minority” to the dimension of “female” they are going to be forced to deal with as they age and become more sensitive and resistant to, change.

The whining has already begun. I read Fark.com a lot, and in every race thread, there is a sizable contingent of white males who moan and complain that either women or minorities or both are vastly favored over the poor little white male.

I can see where they’re coming from, and I have only this to offer: they did it to themselves.

Seriously. Had they treated the native inhabitants of this land well, had they not enslaved almost any other group they came across, had they followed the instructions of their gods to love their neighbors, well, they wouldn’t be in such a large vat of vinegar at the moment, now, would they?

Had they taken the time to apologize for all the crap we know they’ve been doing for lo, these X years of written history, then perhaps people would be willing to forgive and/or forget.
But, nooooooooooo. They demand we forget, “Slavery is over. It’s done with. Nobody living has ever been hurt by it.”

Really? Have you been watching the news from Mississippi this week? Forty years ago, three guys (among hundreds of others) were murdered because they thought blacks should have the ability and right to vote.

Forty years. That’s not such a long time ago, now is it? I bet there are people still alive who were hurt by this. Mickey Schwerner’s wife, for one.

It’s only slightly redeeming to realize that many of the defenders of past injustices hardly seem to know what they’re actually saying. I actually had this discussion with a Southerner once.

Southerner: “Well, had General X not screwed up, we would have won the war.”
Me: So, winning would have been a good thing for the slaves, too?
Southerner: The War wasn’t about slavery. It was about the economy.
Me: Oh, so, despite the fact that slaves were legally property, which could be sold, bought, invested in, and from which equity could be derived, they were not part of the economy? They were goods! They were what the economy was built upon. They made the Southern economy profitable. Yet the War was not about them, it was about some other economy? Which one was that?
Southerner: I was just saying General X screwed up.
Me: Had he not, the South would have won and that would be good, right?
Southerner: Right.
Me: And the slaves?
Southerner: It’s not about them. It’s the economy.
Me: (suppressing great frustration) Oh good grief, whatever. You go with that.
Southerner: Why are you mad, now?

By then I had Jack Nicholson stalking around my skull screaming “You can’t handle the truth!”
I don’t think men will be able to, either. The U.S. and much of the world will continue to
feminize, which to them will feel like all the women are against them, and not in the good way. They will have more female Senators, bosses, and most of their doctors will be female. Turn your head and cough, sir.

My personal most pleasant fantasy of this is that after years of high-decibel monster truck rallies, professional wrestling shows, concerts, and umpteen hundred dollar bass boosters in cars, my generation of men will be reduced to shriveled wheelchair occupants screaming “Wha’d you say, beeyotch!” at the (mostly male) nursing staff.

The majority of women will visit them once a week, then get back to running the world.