I'm Already Gay Enough

I wish, quite sincerely, that I could more like our blog pal Jon, master of Dolores Delargo Towers and Give Em the Old Razzle Dazzle.  Gay Pride celebrations are something Jon looks forward to, embraces in their fullness and enjoys completely.  He is, even as I write this, cutting a big pink and lavender swath through the middle of London.  He is most certainly unlike me already wondering how to go out for coffee tomorrow and avoid Gay Pride entirely.  In San Francisco.  The center of the gay vortex.

I understand Jon has the right attitude, that the celebration is the result of hard work and real sacrifices by better men and women than me who struggled in the face of oppression.  I know the idea of a huge parade and citywide party that lasts for days in honor of sexual deviancy is one which would have amazed and delighted those people.  And yet, I don't want to go.  I feel, keenly, that I am ingrate.

Plus, I'm sure this year's shindig will be unusually full on.  A major victory in the Supreme court is reason enough to celebrate and the timing of it seems almost deliberate.  The weather is even cooperating, unusually balmy and California-y, after a freak summer rain earlier this week cleaned everything up just in time.

I still don't want to go.  My bad.

I think a problem is having been exposed to Mardi Gras for so long and New Orleans' brilliant grasp of how to have a good time.  That's what I want here, the sassy lack of inhibitions, carpe fucking diem, that full throated WHEEEEE.  Certainly, Gay Pride here tries for that, but somehow misses.  Maybe it's the earnest fussing over not hurting anyone's feelings that hides behind the curtain of "inclusiveness."  Maybe it's the corporate sponsorships butting in: "Gay Pride brought to you by Miller Lite, Citibank and Various Other Entities that Would Have Fired Your Gay Ass Fifteen Years Ago if They Knew You were a Cock Sucker."  Although they'd probably have a hard time fitting that on the banner.  Maybe I'm just turned into a grumpy old man who dislikes crowds and fajita stands.  That's it, it's evolution.

So I'm not going.   I am an ingrate and a bad person, but here's what it comes down to:

What we want for Gay Pride:

What we get:

So where can I go for coffee?

Thanks Guys. Go Give Yourselves a Cookie.

So, almost five years ago, R Man and I got married and today, the gubmint finally, as I mentioned over on Cafe Muscato, officially declared our union Not Icky.

Yay.

Traffic Report

I write this in the most hushed tones and from a location that must remain secret for there are Forces out to kill me.  Kill me, I tell you.

Every time I've left the house this week, I've had to deal with drivers who were obviously bent on taking me out, assassins of the road.  Or maybe assholes of the road, same thing, really.

Are they on drugs?  Possibly, although, I personally have driven when I was so loaded I thought my hands were robot powered spiders and done better than these goons.  Are they zombies?  Their lurching progress implies so.  Are they zombies on drugs?  Again, maybe.

Secret Agent Fred and I were attempting to flee the Castro yesterday when we were blocked by a minivan more than double parked.  Sitting athwart 18th Street, it was more like triple parked, or at least 2.5 parked.  It's possible the excess bumper stickers plastered on it had finally gotten to the driver.  Or "driver," I should say.  It was less like an effort at parking and more like someone simply abandoning his car.

And today after piloting around other cars that made the streets a fucking slalom course, I was trapped by two drivers in a fight, possibly to the death, over a parking place.  San Francisco is a tiny place and parking is a premium, but even with my longtime experience, I was impressed.  The two cars (one was a minivan again.  That's always a bad sign, I think.) were both sort of partially wedged into one spot while their drivers got out to better scream at each other.  I couldn't get past, I couldn't back up, because the car behind apparently thought this was some kind of street theater and as I sat there, I realized, "This is just how innocent bystanders get shot."

Which is when a guy on a bike pulled up and yelled at the screamers that they were douche bags.  It was a perfectly correct assessment, but I thought "And that's just what we need.  Encouragement."  Encouragement or not, finally the minivan gave up and was going to retreat, but by then traffic was so backed up in both directions, he couldn't.  I was seriously considering taking my phone out to play a hand of Yahtzee, but the driver behind me suddenly emerged from his coma to reverse out at top speed like he was Jason Fucking Bourne, followed by me and the minivan.

Just remember, when you come to San Francisco be sure to wear a flower in your hair.  And pack some serious heat.  You might need it.

Cars.  They're only good as props for muscle pussy.  Amiright?

Rats

Oh Blanche. You know we got rats in the cellar?

Last week, a quiet night perusing a selection of really useless web sites was interrupted by a racket downstairs.  I went to investigate and narrowed it down to a section of wall that encloses the pipes that go back up to my tasteful pink bathroom.  Creepy.

Saki, the fearless terror of everyone stupid enough to try and pet him, stood next to me with an air of polite interest, looking in the opposite direction of the brouhaha thumping away right next to us.  He seemed embarrassed for me.  "Hey do you hear something?   I think I'm going to go take a nap," was pretty much his entire contribution.

I set up an appointment with an exterminator, but it didn't take long after he showed up for me to start wondering if living with rodents wasn't maybe preferable.  He was probably normal as anyone you meet through a Google page in San Francisco (which isn't saying much,) but the longer he was here, the more erratic he became.  Sometimes he managed blandly chatty and sometimes he was flat with no affect at all.  It was like he'd read a book on how to make conversation but occasionally forgot parts of what he'd studied.

He insisted on a tour even though I told him I knew the rats were down in the furnace room.  When we finally fetched up there he pointed his little flashlight and said "See?  Droppings.  Vermin." as if I had been vigorously denying the very possibility all along.  I suppose it's not realistic to expect too much from someone whose title is Rat Guy, but still....

Yesterday, one of his minions (and think about Rat Guy Minion being your lot in life) showed up and turned out to be just as peculiar.  Again, we'd be talking along and it was like the frequency would sort of change.  "Hello?  Hello? You with me Rat Guy?"  Do you think they're drinking the stuff they're supposed to be spraying around?

He checked the traps and seemed crushed when they turned up empty.  I felt bad for him, as if I had personally let him down.  My rats were not cooperating.  I guess I should have stuck with him, but I snuck off to see if the internet had improved (it hadn't) and when I looked out the window he was up in the yard, spritzing poison around.  I certainly had not requested that ("You know what I would like?  Random toxins in my garden.  Yeah, that's the ticket.") but he seemed to feel better afterwards so I suppose I shouldn't be churlish.

He assured me he'd be back next week.  I hate to think I appear that needy.

Picture It

Ask the Cool Cookie comments in our photo blathering post below "... what am I contract working on at this moment? A professional photo organizer. At least I get paid to do it."  I say Right On, Girl, but am astonished at the same time.  It's difficult enough slogging through all my own photographic proof of shenanigans long gone, and I know, in large part, who the shenaniganners are.  I can't imagine how you could deal with a stack of strangers mugging at the camera.

For instance, in digging through a tasteful box of loose prints, I wind up brooding, "I know that's Diane, but what's with the guy wearing a pig on his head?"  What happens when Cookie runs across the equivalent of this porcine portrait?  How many can you file under "Miscellaneous?"  Plenty, I suppose.

Courageously enough, I am making room by throwing away some.  Editing, editing, always editing.  Photos of somebody's dog, studio portraits of in-laws who always irritated me, school pictures of tiny tykes who I would be unable to pick out of lineup now (and that seems like a fate that could certainly be awaiting some of them.)  Somehow it seems radically daring to toss them, but honestly, I have thousands of others that I'm actually interested in, why hang on to the flotsam?

Speaking of Shenanigans, here's mrpeenee modeling the latest in endangered polyester, courtesy of a friend who has drifted off, the victim of time and tides.  How I wish I could say differently about the coat, but she took it with her.  Rats.

And if I were fortunate enough to have the original of this, would I ever toss it?  Certainly not.  As Diana Vreeland once said "I miss fringe."

R Man

I have spent most of the evening attempting to organize the vast mess my collection of photos has devolved into over the last couple of decades.  Listening to Nina Simone seems appropriate; the fucking cat insisting on being in the middle of all my little OCD piles is not.  Plus, even without Saki rearranging them, the piles seem to have become sort of vague.  A twelve year old mrpeenee in Matamoros; a wedding in Las Vegas where mrpeenee was the matron of Honor only because the bride was operating under the misapprehension that I was willing to appear in drag as such (to be fair, there are several piles that includes shots of mrpeenee in Ladies Wear); the gardens of Chezz peenee through the years.  So many pictures, so few good ones.

And so much R Man.  I have, of late, become aware that the pain of his absence is lessened.  I still miss him in an achy sort of way, but it's amazing what you can get accustomed to.  It's like being resigned to a big hole in my life.  Anyway, here he is in Venice in '95

Isn't he handsome?  Achy.


And his high school graduation photo, Mr. Class President and football team and all that.  I've always been struck that this version of him would most certainly have despised and avoided the faggy teenage loser I was, but just a few years later we were settling, sort of tentatively, into domestic bliss.  Thank god, in my case at least, for the forgiving editing process of time and all that.

And then I ran across this, one of my all time faves, a relic from some long ago foot surgery and which, most assuredly, would never have been allowed out loose on this blog while he still had veto power.  Heehee

Do You Smell That?

So I recently beat out this guy for a seat on the bench at Peet's cafe, cause I am super spry, and he sort of glared at me, but get real, I grew up with two mean older brothers.  You think your beetling eyebrows are going to deter me?  Huh.   But then he got the last laugh when he plopped down next to me to chat with some loser on the other end of the seat and a wave of his stinky old man smell washed over the whole place.  Is that what I needed to go with my cream cheese and blueberry danish?  I think not.  So very not.

And then this evening at the Kabuki Spa, where I was on the receiving end of one of the great massages of our time, the locker room was ripe with Eau de Old Guy.  You know what I mean; it is the aural equivalent of the wrinkledy specimens so unfortunately on view over at Infomaniac

What is with that?  Why is there a specific stench tied to how old you are?  A quick Google search reveals there is, naturalment, a Japanese study that reveals it is a real thing (duh) tied to the breakdown in fatty acids among seniors.  And while we're at it, have you ever noticed any bizarre question leads to a Japanese study?  Other research has topics like Political Subdivisions in 18th Century Bohemian Nationalism.   Japan's got Why Do Old People Smell Like That?

This is not idle curiosity on my part.  Not only do I have exquisitely delicate sensibilities, I am an Old Guy.  Worse I am a fair skinned Old Guy and somehow my peeps and I are the ones who seem particularly fragrant.  More Google searching turns up the assurance that this stinkiness seems to be tied to evolution cruelly insuring that nubile youth do not inadvertently mate with monkeys too old to provide for the offspring.   "Yes, I would let you mount me if you did not smell of impending death."  Ouch.  Harsh, evolution, harsh.

And so I wash and scrub (with Dove soap.  If I cannot smell like a young buck, at least I can smell like a Lady) and I have made Secret Agent Fred promise to soak me in a tub of lavender fragrance, Clorox and turpentine if I ever to start to turn into a stinky old man.  Still, I brood.

On a related note, circling back to the Kabuki Spa, let me just say that I am opposed to the death penalty, but only conditionally.  I firmly believe anyone who farts in a steam room deserves the chair, cause really?  Perhaps you are not familiar with the engineering of steam rooms, but believe me, fresh air circulation is not way up on the list.

But to prove I am not just cranky, here:

Almost certainly not weighed down by Stinky Old Man Smell.