Dancing with Myself

Catholic Shame

Gay Catholics in Chicago were denied the eucharist today because they wore a rainbow colored sash. I think of Gay RC Catholics about the same way I think of Log Cabin Republicans. Please, one of you, tell me again why you remain there.

Memorial Day Week-end

I want a massage so-o-o-o bad. I spent Saturday moving furniture, building shelving, moving boxes, lifting, pulling, reaching. I did real good, though. I can now show the room without having to reassure someone that I really can have it ready by the first of July. Of course, today I can barely move. I've had a hot soak. I've taken the ibuprofen. I've stretched. I want a massage. I know what works.

I hate wasting a three-day week-end on the mundane, but sometimes you got to do whatcha got to do.

I'm going to go hang out on the sidewalks in the Castro this afternoon and catch up on community gossip. Who knows, I might get lucky. I know I'll have fun. I have this theory that when you're having fun, laughing, talking, and such, your body releases endorphins which totally make the pain and stiffness go away. And the gin doesn't hurt. Works for me.

Cheers.

Fish Fry Fridays

I just made that up. I was visiting friends near and far, Leslie, and then her friend, Cassie, and let me tell you what, according to Leslie and several amens from the choir, Cassie's recipe for Macaroni and Cheese is a show stopper. I haven't made it yet, but I bet I do before the week is out. In the spirit of sharing friends and celebrations, I have decided to share a recipe as well.

Most of my regular readers are Southerners, and I owe that more to Wanda than I do to my own expatriate status, but still, knowledge is power, so here is a recipe for my friends and readers, especially those of you who eat a lot of fried fish. Do you Canadians eat as much fried fish as Southerners do? The English do, I know, but they use vinegar as a condiment, for chrissake. What's up with that?

One of these days I'll tell you about my cousin, Sue. She was the queen of fried foods. Blessed be her memory. But that's a story saved for another time.

The recipe I'm offering today is the perfect accompaniment for fried fish. It is a recipe for tartar sauce, because I know you're tired of catsup.

Tartar Sauce

1 cup mayonaise
1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Dash of tabasco sauce (and don't be afraid)
2 Tablespoons drained pickle relish
2 Tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 Tablespoons minced shallots
1 Tablespoon capers, drained and chopped
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl at least a couple of hours prior to serving. Keep in refrigerator.

It may be just me, but this beats the hell out of vinegar on fried fish, and we're not even going to talk about catsup.

Poetry on Friday

With Apologies to Dr. Seuss

I Love My Job

I love my job. I love the pay!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, she is the best!
I love her boss and all the rest.

I love my office and its location. I hate to have to go on vacation.
I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day!
I think my job is really swell, there's nothing else I love so well.
I love to work among my peers, I love their leers and jeers and sneers.
I love my computer and its software; I hug it often though it won't care.
I love each program and every file, I'd love them more if they worked awhile.

I'm happy to be here, I am, I am.
I'm the happiest slave of the Firm, I am.
I love this work. I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.
I love my job -- I'll say it again -- I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who've come today, in clean white coats to take me away.

Now, it's time to to have a martini.

Friday Cat Blogging

We're both lethargic today. That won't work; I have an ambitious to-do list. Sure hope the coffee kicks in soon.

This isn't a holiday holiday week-end. I'm interviewing potential roommates. I have lived alone for four years in this condominium. It's a 2-bedroom, 2-bath open loft style home. You know how nature abhors a vacuum? I have filled these 1400 square feet with stuff. The front bedroom is crammed with stuff. All of my ongoing projects are there. The closet is filled with coats, jackets, seasonal costumes, cases of wine, discarded shoes, etc., etc. All of that stuff has to come out of there and go somewhere else. It is such an overwhelming task that I am barely able to walk into the room, much less clean it out. Last week, I came up with a game plan: I take out one thing every day. Yesterday I took out two things. Wednesday I took out two things, but I just placed the two things I took out on the floor in the living room, so no credit for Wedneday.

I had a great idea of about having a virtual garage sale, but I realized that wasn't going to happen in the timeframe I have to get the room cleaned out. Good idea, though.

I had the most delightful surprise Thursday afternoon. My friend with the hammer sent me a very expensive flower arrangement as a thank you for my Tuesday evening's adventure. It's about 4 feet tall and at least 3 feet in diameter and was designed by one of the best flower artists in San Francisco. Wasn't that nice?

Have a nice week-end, y'all. I don't dare say I'm not going to blog this week-end because I know I'll be dodging that bedroom all week-end. So, see ya' later.

Nit Picking the New York Times

I was visiting Mustang Bobby and reading his comments about the New York Times mea culpa for the biased reporting of Judith Miller in the months leading up to the war in Iraq. I'm lazy, so most of the time I'd just let Bobby or whoever's blog I'm reading, sum it up for me. This time I followed Bobby's link over to the NY Times to see on which page the mea culpa was found. I had not read three sentences before I stumbled over this sentence: "... we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of." That is an ugly sentence. There are times when it is acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition. I can't think of any right now, but I concede regardless that it is probably acceptable sometimes, but not here. So, for the benefit of the editors and proofreaders at the NY Times, this sentence should be "...we found an enormous amount of journalism of which we are proud." Now isn't that better? No, please, thanks are not necessary. Just promise to do better with the writing as you've promised to do with the bias.

Low Hanging Fruit

I have been wanting to say something snarky since I read the first story about Carole Strayhorn, the Texas State Comptroller denying an application for recognition as a religious, tax-exempt entity from a Unitarian-Universalist church in north Texas. I dodged it because I had other things going on and figured it'd be around for awhile. Well, I guess not. It would appear that Ms. Strayhorn has had second thoughts.

Reversing an earlier decision, state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said Monday that a Unitarian church in Denison on the Texas-Oklahoma border will get tax-exempt status.

The decision came after the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported May 18 that the comptroller's office had ruled that the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church was not a religious organization for tax purposes.

The status was denied, the state said, because the church "does not have one system of belief."

I'm sure Ms. Strayhorn was unaware that both Presidents Adams were members of that same church. She probably missed the irony that the Unitarians are the ecclesiastical progeny of the Puritans. Hell, she's so stupid she doesn't know what progeny means or ecclesiastical. You know I 'm Texas born and bred, but jeezus, people, this embarrasses me and I've been gone from Texas over 30 years!

Stunned church officials said it was the first time in U.S. history that any state had denied tax-exempt status to the Unitarians because of their religious philosophy. Father-and-son presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams are among past adherents of the Unitarian church.

Stunned hardly covers the surface. There's not a soul at that Red River Unitarian Universalist Church that didn't feel every part of their entire being validated. Throughout the entire universe, the Force felt it as several hundred exasperated souls in Texas screamed in unison, "YOU SEE? THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH!" And the Universe responded, "Oy vey!"

Wedding Rings

Used to be, if you ran into a cute guy, you could get a clue as to which team he played for by whether or not he was wearing a wedding ring. Same went for girls. Then all those gay men and lesbian women started having significant relationships and started using the same kind of rings used by heterosexual couples. In the beginning, a lot of guys would wear the rings on their right hands (at least in public, because their co-workers would know that they weren't married, right?). But more and more, and especially since the same-sex marriage issue took center stage, everyone's wearing the same rings on the same hands (left).

It would be easier for me as I saunter through life trying to figure everyone out without having to actually engage them in anyway, if a few rules were observed.

First rule: If you're coupled, wear the ring on the left hand. I've heard that some European cultures wear their rings on the other (or right) hand. Do it the way you want at home. Do it that way here and you may get some unexpected opportunities, because I propose that if you're single but want to get married, you wear the ring on the right hand. Wouldn't that be cool. You know immediately if you should move in or hold back.

Now I know I'm going to get resistance with this line, but wouldn't it be even better if you sort of communicated your particular team by wearing a particular kind of ring on the right hand, sort of like the old handkerchief code used by Gay men in the 70s and 80s, only more tasteful and worn as a ring. Wouldn't that make shopping at Home Depot a lot more fun?

I don't know if any of you had the chance today to watch the California Supreme Court's oral arguments as to whether Mayor Gavin Newsom exceeded his authority when he invited Gay men and Lesbian women to come and get married at City Hall. Of course, he did. That's the part that we loved about it. The City Attorney charged with representing the City in front of the court today was Therese Stewart. Her job was not to win the Court over. The deck was stacked. She knew that, and you did too after about a minute of questioning. Her job was to make the mayor's actions seem reasonably plausible, and she did, too, with style and humor. And she's beautiful, in a mannish sort of way (wink, wink). When asked if the mayor was attempting to circumvent the judicial branch, she quipped, "If that was his plan it wasn't very successful."

Today's hearing was not about same-sex marriage, it was about whether the mayor could do what he did, and it appears the answer is no. There was a second argument going on which is much more difficult for the court. What to do with the 4,000 plus same-sex couples who have the right to believe in good faith that they are married? Let them bring 4,000 suits into the system each time they encounter a problem with their marriage's validity, or just pretend they do not exist because the mayor had no right to do what he did? The court's wrestling with that. Some want the mayor stripped naked and whipped for the audacity of his actions. Some want the couples to have their day in court. Win or lose, we've already won just by being here. When I first came out, Gay bars were illegal in about 45 of the states. There were sodomy laws on the books in about as many states, and the only place Gays felt any safety was in the state of anonymnity afforded in large, urban areas.

Fast forward 40 years, that's a lot of naked, gyrating bodies in lots of parades, several of which I was in, but -- be that as it may -- presently, there are same-sex marriages taking place all across Europe, Canada, even in the U.S., and domestic partner benefits are routinely offered in the most conservative of states because companies want smart and dynamic people and they don't care with whom they have sex. I'm on the winning side in this. My friend Bob and I agreed tonight that we'd just as soon this issue wait until after the election, but I reminded him that the two of us are single. Our rights weren't being affected, it was those couples who were raising kids or wanting to, or who had been with one another for over 50 years, -- those same-sex couples, who were fueling this movement, and by gosh and by golly, if it's that important to them, I'll stand with them and demand acknowledgement. This is not about me.

This is the direction of our cultural evolution. It doesn't have to be this week, or next week. It is the inevitable expansion of progressive thought, and that consciousness is expanding exponentially. My guru told me that when I encountered a wave of such cosmic proportions, that I should pretend I'm a surfer and ride the wave. Cowabunga!

An LBJ Moment

That's what we need from Bush. "My feller Amurcans, I have become the issue and it is dividing the country. I will not seek nor will I accept my party's nomination for the President of the United States. I will devote the remainder of my time in the Presidency trying to bring peace to Iraq and to this country."

Yeah, like that's going to happen. I was in transit from work during Skippy's speech, so I had to satisfy myself with Gwen Ifill's wrap up on the News Hour. I was underwhelmed. I'm so embarrassed to remember back at the start of this war when I was a reluctant hawk. Hell, I was in good company, but that's no excuse for bad judgment.

The war went amazingly smooth, but as professional as our soldiers were, this was no text book operation. They made wrong turns, they made bad decisions, they let their opponent slip away, and then Bush claimed victory. Excuse me? The enemy wasn't defeated and we're exposed like sitting ducks in a land where we can't tell shit from shinola. We don't speak the language, we don't read their signs, we don't respect their religion, and now everyone in the country hates us, and we're hopelessly outnumbered. Our soldiers can't make themselves secure, so how the fuck are they going to make Iraqis feel secure? This war was poorly planned, poorly executed, and there is no exit strategy. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and every general with more than three stars needs to go. We didn't do that after Vietnam. We didn't clean up the Officer Corps to get rid of the military mindset that caused Vietnam to happen. We barely changed political leadership, but there was no accountability in the military. They didn't learn shit from Vietnam. So here we are. And guess who the military's going to blame for this failure? Well, not themselves, I'm sure of that. I bet they go with past successes and blame Massachussetts liberals. That's just my opinion. I don't know nothing about wars, just bullshit when I step in it.

Bush has to go. This is hardball, you know. You only get so many strikes and so many balls. The sorry loser has struck out. We deserve better than this. Our men and women in uniform deserve better leadership than this. How dare he put them in harm's way dishonestly. We ordinary Americans who struggle to make ends meet, find money to send our kids off to college. Those of us who need to trust the government to do what's right. Us. We deserve better, too. Go off into the sunset, Skippy, and become as irrelevant as Gerald Ford, the other loser of whom you remind me so much.

Back Home Again

I be back. But boy, what a week. It all started last Tuesday evening. I got call late Tuesday night to bail a friend out of jail. She didn't do anything real bad, she just scared the bejeezus out of her soon-to-be ex-husband. I've since heard both sides of the story, and have to conclude that (1) she should not have attacked the door he wisely placed between them with a hammer, and (2) he shouldn't brag about sexual exploits before the divorce is final.

I jumped up and drove to San Francisco to post bond for my friend. No traffic and no problems, I made it in 15 minutes. After the bail bondsman business, I went to move Boudreaux, that's my car, to a legal parking spot where I can wait for my friend to get processed out. I barely drive around two blocks and she overheats for no apparent reason. Damn you, Boudreaux, this ain't no time for shit, I says, more as a prayer than a threat. I had to wait almost 3 hours for my friend to be processed, but when we went back to the car, Boudreaux she started up and ran normally. The next morning, she seemed fine and after a couple of test runs, I decided I misremembered Tuesday night and that Boudreaux had never overheated, and that if I only had faith, all would be all right. Well, I made that leap of faith and headed out to Sacramento, trusting God and Boudreaux, (although I did keep my AAA card and my cell phone firmly in hand). We made it there and back without incident. This is Boudreaux:

Boudreaux is a 1990 El Dorado Biarritz. She black on black on black, and everywhere you see the symbol or the word Cadillac, it's in gold. I am so over this old whore; I want a new car so bad I can taste it. One of those new hybrids, maybe. That's not going to happen though until Boudreaux costs more than a car note. She come close to that last year.

And the conference was fine. Not great, just fine. I met a few people, learned a few new tricks, picked up some new software to practice with, had a great visit with my sister. Someone I admire, Elizabeth Shown Mills, has published an historical novel, Isle of Canes, which I'm reading this week-end. It's about the mixed-race family, the Metoyers, from up near Nachitoches, Louisiana. It's a great story. Ms. Mills is one of the great living genealogists, and this book was born out of her genealogical work on that same family. Oh, and my camera was stolen from my bag at the Sheraton. Bummer. Pray with me for insurance coverage.

Did anything happen while I was gone? I watched CNN a few times in the hotel room, but I was disconnected to reality the entire week that I can't remember anything. Is Skippy still President? It'll probably take me a day or two to come back to normal.