Sparkle Neely, Sparkle

mrpeenee actually does not come from a family of drag queens, although rhinestones do show up a lot as familial mementoes. Case in point: tonight when we go to dinner, I will be wearing on my cuffs the links that were part of my father's rhinestone stud set from when he was young and, apparently, the terror of South Texas.

The idea that my father, who displays the suave finish of Jed Clampett, even had a stud set is amazing. That they were composed of rhinestones is like stumbling across Sarah Palin's past as a pole dancer.

I've had them for years and never worn them (well, how often has the need for stud set come up in your life? There's no need to struggle for double entendre here, I provide them for you.) I had to scavenge a stone from one of the shirt front studs to replace one in the cufflinks lost in who knows what madcap evening of long ago. I've rinsed them in vinegar to shine them up (come to mrpeenee for household tips for drag queens) and am looking forward to being the hit of our dinner table.

Big Times

Oh, my little chickens, what excitement around our normally sleepy little corner. Yesterday was the anniversary of R Man dropping by his cardiologist and winding up being whisked into the hospital for open heart surgery. Let that be a lesson to you, duckies. It was also our 27th anniversary of meeting in a sleazy New Orleans bar. My, my, my. Who could have known pulling my pants down in the backroom of Jewel's would be such a brilliant first step.

And then today is R Man's birthday; happy, happy sweetie. His 60th, in fact. To start the celebrations of such a momentous one, we had lunch at the Zuni Cafe yesterday with his best friends - delicious, amusing and LONG on very hard seats. My butt is still sore, but it was a wonderful time.

I gave R several CDs of Renaissance music including a piece written for some long gone Pope which was only performed for his Holiness, alone, all by his bad self, on Easter by a choir of men and pussyboys. God only knows what went on after that, although I am perfectly wiling to speculate.

And a hat. He dug it. Dinner tonight at the always delightful Range with yet more friends (who knew we had so many?)

Tomorrow, of course, is our date with destiny when the beautiful and lovely David comes over to cut down the tree in our backyard. To finish the birthday celebration, we're having hot dogs for lunch. We have been very virtuous ever since the silly old cardiac incident by not eating fat or processed meats, which way leave out hot dogs, so this exception is a big deal. I also realize from sad experience with you guys and your lacivous comments whenever poor little Dave is mentioned, that combining him and wieners in one post is asking for it. Consider this a present to you all, you vulgar dogs you. Knock yourselves out. Happy birthday.

OK. OK. OK. No more whinging, no more glum woeful posts. I refuse to allow a bunch of mormon funded, oh-what-about-the-children shrieking harridans make me miserable. Wouldn't that just be handing them an even greater victory? The days are too beautiful to waste and will not last, R Man's birthday is Monday so we're making a four day weekend out of this to celebrate, we had tasty, tasty udon for dinner and besides, I'm not good at being downcast for long. It could be my sunny disposition, it could be my tiny little short attention span; whatever. I am hereby moving on.

Plus Ernesto Garimundus, the houseboy in charge of our Laundry and Wiccan Centre, says I am bumming him out and that I should stop.So what could I do?

Married? Not So Fast, Buddy

I didn't expect to be so disappointed if Proposition 8 passed. Prop 8 is the California amendment which eliminated same-sex couples' right to marry, and it's passing right now by a tiny, tiny margin, but tiny, tiny margins are all it takes in a democracy. I thought that I had a hard-headed view about how very unlikely it was that the gays would achieve something so thrilling as this minor bit of equality, but I seem to have been swept up by my wedding and the general optimism. Living a life as an out gay man in San Francisco, I suppose I've gotten a skewed perspective that things have changed, that things are better. On one hand I know they are better: I have a sweet happy life with a wonderful man I love that I could not have imagined being mine when I first struggled out of the closet 25 years ago, and yet.... And yet, this reminds me that the morons who plagued me as a sissy in elementary school have not gone away. I suppose they never will.

th th th that's all folks

When I was a little boy, I had a terrible stutter. My family as a whole was going through a very rough patch and I reacted by developing a stammer and then was so embarrassed by that, I quit talking, pretty much. By the time I entered adolescence, it had faded away, thank god. Oddly enough, I once mentioned this to my mother and she was amazed to hear that I had stuttered. She said she had never, not once, heard me have a hard time starting a sentence or a word. Were we in parallel universes? I don't know.

I'm still so self-conscious about the possibility of stuttering, I find myself rehearsing what I'm going to order at length the whole time I'm standing in line, just to make sure the words actually get out. The few times since I've grown up that I've had to deal with it has always been because of stress.

So tonight I met a new guy who is a volunteer teacher here for me. We had only communicated by email before and I had no idea that he had a bad stammer of his own. As I was making small talk with him, I realized my own stutter was coming back. Sympathy stuttering, who knew? I was horrified that he would think I was mocking him, I knew couldn't make myself stop (it doesn't work like that) and so I took the coward's way out: I started coughing and pointed towards the general area of the restroom, rushed off and am now hiding at my desk where I will not have to deal with him again, hopefully. Also, hopefully, he'll just think I have consumption and not that I'm a rude jerk.

Life is so complicated.

Fall Back

The design of the office building in which I toil includes a long, street-level colonnade which opens onto a courtyard, which in turn is surrounded on three sides by tall buildings. It makes for a very protected environment, especially attractive on a rainy, blustery day like today. There's a Starbucks there, so you can sit cozily watching the rain and the schmoes running through it whilst sipping your tea. Sweet.

Speaking of sweet and autumnal events, my office is once again awash in leftover Halloween candies, all of it the no-name, generic variety, odd knockoffs of Tootsie Pops and Hershey Kisses and every other trademarked goodies. My theory is these are either the offerings trick or treaters scorned, or they are the detritus of what my co-workers' kids scored and subsequently refused. I can't blame them. All this crap looks suspiciously like it's composed of equal parts corn syrup, wax, and rat droppings.

Amy Camus, P.I. R.

Oh dear, yet another Giant Among Us cut down. Yma Sumac has passed, returned to her Incan forefathers. Who knew she was still alive-ish, here in 2008? Did you know? I didn't know. The obit in the SF Chronicle today was filled with myth busting dreariness, but did include the scintillating nugget that she had a LP re-issued in the 90s called "Yma Rocks!" I am off to amazon as soon as I finish this to snag one.

I saw her in a 50s movie with Robert Young(!) about a bunch of plane crash survivors in the Andes being warbled at by Herself. I think I saw it. Maybe I just dreamed it. Still, I salute you, oh Peruvian Songbird of Extreme Freakishness.