Until children doth us part

Kids are an issue with gay relationships. I'm not talking like 'gaybies' being adopted by gay couples.

Gay couples have Het couples they hang out with. Dinner, movies, parties, fun times. And until it was more common practice for gays to want to "settle down" there would be a divide when the Het couple finally decided to start breeding.

Cuz what happens when folks breed? They start hanging out with other folks that breed. Sharing stories of midnight feedings and vomit on their work clothes. Bonding turns into play dates. Play dates begat dinners. Dinners begat birthday parties. You see the pattern.

And there....in the distances....are your fun Gays. Waving good-bye.

Don't get me wrong. The Hets try to include the Gays. They do! And the Gays LOVE the lil tykes that the breeders bring forth. But when it boils right down to it, there just isn't common ground anymore.

And calling the Gays "Uncle Tim and Uncle Frank" is sweet as all get out. But the truth is they just aren't family. The Gays are spending the weekend in Key West and Hets are loading the mini van with water wings to head to Disneyworld.

It's a sad divide that really can't be helped. And even in this day and age of gays having kids, you'll find that having kids isn't even the same! Two Daddies have different issues than Mom and Dad. While the basics are the same, (midnight feedings and vomit on your work clothes) other things like "Why don't you have a spot for TWO fathers names on the school registration form?" sort of sets them apart again.

While we love our Hets, and we adore our fauxphews & near-nieces, there will always be a divide that, sometimes, love just can't bridge.

Why are Mondays hard?

Does Monday just get a bad wrap cuz it's Monday? If we started work on Tuesday, would THAT be the hated day?

Today is hard.

Today is a put-my-head-on-my-keyboard-wrist-rest kinda hard.

I put in my 40 hours a week, like a regular Joe, then I bar tend a couple nights a month. It's not often, but I'm "old" and 5 hours on my feet for a Sunday happy hour makes Monday that much harder.

But it's nice to have a lil folding money in my pocket and some in my secret stash for our Cape escape.

I'm at this point in my life...you know that point where you're running a marathon in knee high mud and you just hit the one mile marker. I'm starting to 'wear out', I think.

I told a co-worker that I 'didn't care' anymore. I'll do whatever they want me to do 'artistically'. I'm not going to fight for what's good art, good design, good outdoor, best for the client, when the client wants the most of his money and the sales guys wants the most sales for his money and, to be honest, the more I do the more for my money.

So who cares?

My co-worker said, "Let's review....your girlfriend has MS, she just lost her job, you have a job that you will probably never advance at, your family is 3000 miles away, your girlfriend also has to have kidney surgery, you, like many don't have enough money to get by, your mother-in-law is coming to "help out" for your girlfriends surgery and you're working two jobs. I'd say you have the right to be miserable."

I know that my problems are hardly anything, in the grand scheme of things. I'm not homeless or have a terrible disease. But it's really relative, isn't it? Wako Jacko had everything a person could ever want and he was the most miserable fuck on the planet. So much so he let himself get so bad he basically killed himself.

The silver lining is that tomorrow is Tuesday. And no one hates Tuesdays.

The viper is coming!

My rear window wiper was possessed. It would go off all by itself. Flap-skwek-flap-skwek. No rhyme or reason. No pattern. Not cuz I rolled down my window, or hit the washer on the front window.

Just cuz.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to let the wipers go too fast when it's actually raining. So you gotta know THIS is driving me nuttier than and Chinese chicken salad!

I called my friendly car dealer, who I bought my car from and have faithfully had it serviced there for 6 years now. It's a regular routine that I will call, give my name and get a hearty, "Well yes Cabrina! Bring it right in on your way to work."

This day, a new guy got my call and, not only couldn't he find my name, but he told me to wait till 2pm to bring in my car.

I felt like La Liz, standing outside of Spago's, the hostess scanning her reservations and finally looking up to say, "I'm sorry...we don't have a table for a Ms. Taylor." It was everything I could do to not say, "Do you KNOW who I am?!?!"

Why they should know me from any other shlub they rake over the money coals for services rendered, I don't know. It's their fault...they treated me...well...nice. Now, they don't know my name?

ComeOHN!

I had to have my car back at four o'clock, to the shock of Tim, my newbie. "Now, Mrs. Gilbert, what are we doing for you today?" I immediately looked around thinking my mother, Mrs. Gilbert, had entered the room.

"Well..the wiper is possessed and goes on whenever it seems to want. And just a regular "check up."

"Fine. Good. We'll take care of that for you."

My first call was Tim informing me that there was some wear on my struts and he would LOVE to replace those for me. I tell him I'm not paying for that. He said they are under warrenty. I say to him that I think he's wrong and could he look it up.

"Oh....I got your account confused with another....you have some time on those." REALLY? You confused me with someone else? SHOCKING!

A call at about 2:00 revealed that it was the motor and it would cost me about $245. I'm not happy and somewhat confused...if the wiper is technically working, why do I need a motor?

Tim called me at 2:30 to let me know that he had removed my "borken" motor and replaced it with a NEW motor and, low and behold, the wiper was going off whenever it wanted too! I told him THAT is why my car is in his care in the first place. He informed me it was something to do with the computer and now, due to my time restriction I put on him, he doesn't have time to diagnose it properly. I have to bring it back tomorrow.

Is it just me....or isn't that HIS fault since he pulled my working motor out and then put a new motor in when the problem all along was that the wrong "message" was being sent to the wiper and it was obviously getting power to the motor CUZ IT WAS FLAPPING LIKE A DEAD FISH ON MY REAR WINDOW!!!

Day two. Tim calls me after I drop off my car and informs me that it's now a computer module that is the problem. He's gone to bat for me to shave off $100 for the part from the manufacture.

If you can shave off $100....this isn't going to fare well for my checkbook....is it?

In total, my bill is now $356. That's US currency folks. Not Loonies. Not Pounds.

"Tim...I'm not paying for that new motor when mine is perfectly good...right?"

"Nooooo mam'. That is taken care of under warranty."

"And the oil change from yesterday? That's included?"

"Um....what did we do again?"

"Oil and filters?"

"Um....I....."

"Tim...I need you to say that's included."

(wait for it......)

"Yes...I believe it is."

"Good boy."

By the time I walk across the street from work to get my car, the total bill has risen to $444 with tax and my amazing good (re: bad) luck with money.

The woman at the counter hands me my keys and there seems to be two fobs attached. I inform her they aren't mine. She says they probably come with the new computer. Then she says the three words I soooo didn't want her to say, "I'll get Tim."

NOOOOOOoooooooo!

I don't want to see him! Ugh! I HATE HIM! I've never hated anyone as much as I hate him at this very moment. He's a liar and a thief and he has NO idea who I am. (Even tho 3 other people said hello to me by name in Tim's presence)

Tim pops around the corner and says, yes, indeed, the fobs are new due to the computer. The woman informs me that she has no one to drive the car around for me, so I have to go 'round back and get it myself.

Joy.

I went to the car and pushed the new fob and was relieved to find it actually worked. I wasn't going to be held responsible if I had to talk to Tim again. I plopped down in the driver's seat, the smell of men in greasy overalls stunk up the car. I tore the cellophane a lil more on my 'ocean breeze' pine tree. (re: middle eastern aftershave with burnt sugar overtones). And then I saw it: a customer survey on the passenger seat.

Tim, my foe. After I till this puppy out, you will wish you never met me!

The wheels on the bus....

Respect for hubcaps.

You've seen it. Like lil wheel tombstones along the side of the street. A battered hub cap, leaning against a tree or hung on a fence. A lone hubcap. And not a retro, much needed to finish off a classic car kind of hubcap, but a plastic one. An ordinary, non-interesting one.

Besides the fact that it's been "saved".

I saw one this morning. There was trash in the gutter, yards over-grown with weeds, hookers on their way home after a hard days-night. There it was, leaning on a tree. Picked from the road by some passerby who decided that the hubcap should, not only be saved for the street, but displayed against the tree on the side of the road.

The thought that the person who lost it might notice and wander back over the streets they went down days before, worry creasing their brow.

"Ohhhh...my poor hub cap! Where ever could it be?"

And then they would see it!! There, just beyond the crack dealer, by the tumbleweed like newspaper balls, rolling down the street in the dusty wind.

How happy that car owner would be, that some kind soul saved their plastic, piece of shit, scuffed up hubcap.

Praise the Oprah!

What is it about a hubcap that someone will take the effort to give it a place of honor, but they won't clean up the crap in their front yard? Seriously....they aren't coming back for it! It more than likely came off on the passenger side anyway. So that means the owner/driver won't notice it's missing for at least a couple days. By the time they notice, they won't remember where they hell they've been!

And if the car had three other hubcaps like THAT one....they ain't gonna miss THIS one. In fact that's probably the LAST hubcap they had on the car anyway.

Is there some hubcap reward spot I don't know about? Can you collect them like cans and bottles and get a good return on them? You see homeless folks with them all the time. And not usually down in the grocery basket, but riding in the pace of honor, on top! Like a Flava Flave necklace, it's a status symbol for vagabonds and hobos.

It's not like they are made of metal anymore, so there can't be a "scrap metal" value to them. I'm not sure what those spinner ones are made of, but if you lost one of those, you would have a back up cap underneath. It's like a naked rim protection system. Two for the price of one with a down payment of "good lord that's the dumbest looking set of wheels I've ever seen."

Hubcap idolatry will forever mesmerise me. Check it out on your next drive. You'll see them. Standing alone, helped from the gutter to sidewalk glory, but some helping hand.

I knew you were going to say that!

It's a lil slow at work. So I occupied my time with watching episodes on Lifetime's website. No...Meredith Baxter Bernie was not in any of them.

The one that got me hooked was a reality show they had on that was called "American Psychic Challenge" where they had 16 psychics, with all different specialties, compete for the top spot and $100,000.

http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/americas-psychic-challenge/video

I found it fascinating, as anyone that knows me could guess. It came down to two women. One, a real character who was a voodooist named Jackie. She had stark, razor straight cut hair and a dark way about her. And a bodacious, curvy blonde named Michelle. She was all about goodness and light. It was a perfect match up for the final task: bad mojo against angel medium, black and white, good and, well...not so good.

Out of the two of them, Jackie would probably get her own spin off show, to be sure. She was just 'odd' enough with her warning the other contestants not to "touch her person" and flashing something from her pouch that the host announced had a "nail" on it. I'm guessing it was a digit or some sort. Weather it was animal or human...I'm not sure. Calling herself the "white serpent" and braggin' how she walks in the world of the dead, her show would defiantly get some DVR time in my house.

And weather it was set up or not, the reactions from some of the folks they encountered couldn't have been put on or acted in such a real way. Messages from beyond, a touch, a habit, shared with those left behind, their shock and tears were very real.

I believe we all have the ability to use more than 10% of our brain. Could I use mine to guess the quick ESP tests they gave at the commercial breaks? Not many of them. I did a lot better when I didn't force it. Just wait for something to pop in front of my vision. It was the second guessing that got me.

And do you think the winning lotto numbers could EVAH pop into my head?

My sister, who is very much on this path to an 'other worldly awareness" is coming in October. I got us tickets to see John Edward. We are thinking that we can make enough noise, mentally, to grab his attention at the show.

it might be more worth our time to concentrate on those lotto numbers when she's here!

Shamone!

It's bad enough when the icons that you grew up with start to fade away. It's a testament to how your aging as well. Time marching on and all that rot.

When the news of Michael Jackson reached my ears, I was in shock! I thought all that time in his hyperbolic chamber would keep him alive forever.

Not that I didn't think he had crossed a line and would probably never come back to the other side of humanity, but even for him, it was a tragic way out.

You just knew that there were forces at work to drive him to this point. From day one, his father saw him as a meal ticket. A quote from his mother on a retrospective showed had her saying that when MJ wanted to strike out on his own, she said, "Michael....it's not that you don't need your brothers. You will do fine on your own. It's that your brother need YOU!"

And there lies the problem. How does one man hold the weight of his entire family on his shoulders, never allowed to feel like he can break free, and still come through on the other side unscathed?

He doesn't.

Rumors aside, I wished that he could have had some success before this type of thing happened. It would have been nice if he could have had another string of gold hits. Something to try and take the stink of the last few years from the mix.

MJ changed the world of pop music, the era of the music video, influenced every artist that is and that has yet to come, and created a dance sensation that will live forever. And while I never owned one record, you still had to feel the thrill when the music started and he glided across the stage; smoke and lights and excitement.

RIP KOP

We can't have nice things!

I drive down Geddes Street almost every morning. I have two routes that I can take. Geddes is the worst of the two, but feels, somehow faster. I can tell the difference when I drive through the Tipp Hill area, as the stress and 'icky' feelings just aren't there.

As you might figure out, one way is a nice dive through green trees and parks and dainty neighborhoods. The other a city trek with shopping carts and graffiti and boards where windows use to be.

what makes a neighborhood go 'bad'?

The city, for the past couple of years, has tried to improve the quality of life on Geddes. They put in all new sidewalks, with brick parkways. It did make the look of the street improve. Then they placed sapling trees into the green spaces between the new pavers. They blew in grass seed, which came up like clock work the next season.

The building are still a mess. A crooked set of beige teeth in a jack o'lantern's smile, all in a row up one side of the street and down the other. Mismatched siding and broken off eves with shingles hanging like dark frowning eyebrows, scowling.

And the windows....what is it with glass and this city? Can't a building sit vacant without the glass being shattered from its frame? It's like people that rob homeless folks...can you really make a person feel any lower? What have they got left for the love of Oprah! Can you make a house look any worse? It's already got no family to live in it and love it, then you smash it's eyes with rocks and sticks. What is left to reflect light and sun into a dark street if there is no windows?

A couple weeks ago someone, I'm assuming the city, put out huge terracotta planters on every corner of the main drag of Geddes. I looked at my girlfriend and sighed, "I give them a week."

Sure enough...2-3 weeks after my depressing prediction, the pots had been upturned. The tender flowers and plants, barely given a chance to take root, laying on the hard, cement....I could almost hear them gasping for the moist soil they had been spilled from.

As I drove, I passed one after another, the dirt flung from the pots. After passing 6 or so I came to a light. On this corner was a woman, probably in her sixties. She was on her hands and knees, an old coffee mug on the sidewalk in the spilled dirt. I watched her as she pulled from the dirt a small flower, it's colorless roots dangling from her caring hands. She placed it into the righted pot and pressed the soil around it. She then took up her mug, scooped the spilled soil into it and poured it around the flower.

Here was a woman, a neighbor, a citizen, at seven in the morning, with not even the basics of gardening tools, making right what someone made wrong.

My first impulse was to pull my car into the lot at that corner and help her with the six or so pots she still had to do. Then I let my fears creep in: was it even safe to stop my car, let alone leave myself in the open like that?

Maybe neighborhoods go bad.....cuz "neighbors" stop caring about other "neighbors"

Guilty as charged.

By the pricking of my thumb....

Is it too early to talk about Halloween?

I can't help myself. I know it's July, but with global warming, we had to bundle up to watch fireworks the other day. A guest at our party said, "Lovely fall we are having."

Well...with fall comes...you know what? The most awesome of holidays!

HALLOOOOWEEEEENN!!

It doesn't help that my idol, pumkinrot.com, is prepping already for the annual scarecrow contest in his local hollow. This year's entry is amazing! (see above)

OK, I won't dwell on it, but I can tell you that when I talk about my favorite holiday...something inside me comes alive.

I'm not sure it's a good thing.

Toes curl around the edge....breathe...spread your arms...now....JUMP!

How long have you ever "done" anything? Held your breath, held a job, held an image in your mind? Been friends with someone or maybe lived in the same place?

My honey has been a print jounalist for almost 20 years. And 13 of them, at thee local paper in town, ends today.

13 years...walking into work the same way every day. Parking in the same spot every day. Saying 'good morning' to some of the same faces every day.

13 years > 4,745 days

Our relationship is short 6 months to beat her releationship with that job. She's scared. I don't blame her. It's a long time to be doing something you love, fight for, frett over.

After much deliberation and heart tugging discussion, she decided to take a 'buy out' offered by the paper. Seeing the state of print journalism, she plans on taking a course in writing her first book and freelancing along the way to discovering her creative freedom that comes with freeing ones self from the confines of a cubicle.

And while she has her doubts....I know she'll be just fine. Cuz you can't contain her kind of talent in such a small space like an office, working for the man. Much like the plants that grace our yard, that she grows so well, her life is about to take blossom and grow.

How Grey is Your Garden?

"But you see in dealing with me, the relatives didn't know that they were dealing with a staunch character and I tell you if there's anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. They don't weaken, no matter what." ~Little Edie Bouvier Beale

Have you seen Grey Gardens? I have. It haunts me on a regular basis.

Maybe it's the documentary style. Maybe it's the grainy film. Maybe it's the lost era of the 70's. Or maybe it's just that rich folks, left unattended....melt into what they are at the core: simple and crazy.

The stars of the documentary are Little Edie and Big Edie, daughter and mother. The Edie's are cousin and aunt to Jackie O. Film makers heard about their 28 room mansion on Long Island about to be closed down for the condition is was in, when Jackie and her sister Lee came to the rescue to get it up to code. These to 'stars' were high society back in the day and are now bag ladies with a bankroll. Cats and crap piled to the ceiling included.

If Jackie had been left in one of her mansions, forgotten by her family, would she be eating Friskies with a dash of lemon and calling it "Pate"? Would any of the rich and famous be who they are, without the public lifting them to heights that no human can withstand the pressure?

Brittney Spears, who moves from mansion to mansion in Beverly Hills, can sleep on mounds of money she's made over the years. But how do folks describe her? "She's just a barefoot, hillbilly that made good!" For sure, without the money, she would be just that. Three or four kids, playing out back of the trailer park, BritBrit cooking up greens and waiting for her man to come home for the mines. Broke, happy and now it makes sense that she doesn't wear undies...she can't afford them.

A talk show host was talking about this the other day. His example was Angelina Jolie. If it wasn't for Hollywood turning her "quirks" into tabloid hoopla, she would be a receptionist who everyone would talk about was 'c-r-a-z-y'. It would probably be her fourth or fifth job in a year. Meanwhile her neighbors worry cuz she keeps too many knives and someone said there was blood in her fridge.

The FBI would be at her door in a heartbeat.

"Shame....she was such a pretty girl. Probably had the world at her finger tips...but she was just so....so....strange!" ~one of her neighbors on the six o'clock news.

The Edie's seem crazy enough. Sweet as pie, but durn right crazy. Crazy like a train wreck you can't turn your view from. I had heard that was the story, but it still caused me to stare, open mouthed, at the TV in awe.

On the extras they show the following this film has. Fans watching it over and over again. Memorizing the lines. Talking about how Little Edie would be a fashion maven today instead of the crazy girl with the sweater for a turban. I thought at the time, THAT'S crazy! I mean, once you see it, is there really a reason to see it again? CAN you sit through it again?

Then......I got my own copy.

Feeding the Troops

Just up north of us is Fr. Drum. Home to the 10th Mountain Div. These are the kids that are down on the ground in the Middle East doing the grunt work.

And I do mean kids.

We have, for the past 3 years, participated in Riverfest. It's a big festival they put on for the troops and their families with a carnival and a boat ride around an area called the Thousand Islands. They end up on Heart Island, home to the Bolt Castle http://www.boldtcastle.com/ where volunteers cook and serve enough food for 5500 folks.

That's where we come in.

While it's awesome to support the troops, to meet the Generals that lead them, and get a handshake and a thank you from them, you can't help noticing that none of them are anywhere close to being my age.

Person after person passed by my station, I was in charge of sporks and plates, with a "thank you mam" and a look on their face that was humble and downright sheepish. Most of them had a spouse in tow and a couple kids. Some of them with mom and dad. Some, gaydar told me, were DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell) and would ultimately catch my eye, with a knowing nod.

One couple's tot dropped their place setting, the father, an obvious soldier with his buzz cut, looked at us embarrassed, "I'm sorry mam. Honey you have to hold on to it, now pick it up." I smiled and grabbed it from the ground first, "It's OK...we have tons of them! Have a clean one and you," I squatted down to her eye level, "Tell the food servers that you get whatever you want." The little girl, who had to be two or three looked at me, "Anything?" I looked at her dad, who had to be just out of high school, he nodded and smiled. "Yep...anything!", I assured her.

She beamed. It was priceless.

I imagined, a military family, probably was on budget, without each other for months on end and moved often, the thought of "anything your heart desires" was probably a big deal, even for a child.

But I couldn't help thinking....so young. They were all so fucking young!

The oldest among them may have been nearing 30. Those 'older' had a bit of a swagger to them. I wondered silently what they had seen. If the younger crowed was still basic training, had they been over there? Could these meek, mild mannered, men and women actually be the gun slinging heroes that face death every day? Watch their friends get ripped apart by enemy fire. Hold an open wound with their bare hand, the blood seeping between battle torn fingers that rest upon gun oiled triggers.

Off to the side a couple of boys walked away from the crowd. They were darker figures, even from a distance. Their posture, their walk, their shoulders hunched. You could tell they had seen some action. Would they be able to have a normal life. Night times free of horrific dreams and cold sweats brought on by the raging battle that still plays out on the back of their eyelids? They already stood off alone from everyone else.

My guess was no...they were damaged. Damaged so young, so early in life. Protecting a country that would probably not take care of them when they were done.

Is war so important? To send a 19 year old father into a place that, while physically they might return, mentally they never will.

What price is freedom?

For me...it was to stand for 5 hours in chilling rain, soaked to the skin, smile on my face, handing out sporks. And when they said, "Thank you mam." I said, "No......thank YOU."