Bleh and Rant

I lost my car last night for half an hour. Just completely forgot where I'd parked and wandered the lot calling forlornly - who knew there were so many Camrys in the world, or that all cars looked so alike in the dark?

I'm at a level of maximum disaster-proneness right now. I've got five papers due in the next two weeks, three of which I've done no reading for, and I'm constantly tired. I just want to hide under something and sleep for a long time. Last night, after finding my car, I managed to spill coffee all over myself and the seat - coffee with milk, which is just a death knell for upholstery. Confession: I cried a little out of frustration.

And I signed up for the gym a month ago and since then have managed to go three whole times and have actually gained weight. Wouldn't it be funny if I were fatter at my wedding than I'd ever been in my life? Yeah, ha ha ha.

Enough kvetching. I'm not on fire, right?

. . .

Most of my posts over the past few weeks have been related to gay marriage. I was thinking the other day about why I'm so passionate about this particular topic. I mean, I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things. Why am I not railing about the Iraq situation? Bush's spending policies? The new CA initiative to tax Native American casino income?

I guess that I see a difference in a lot of situations between my opinion and the Truth. Even on issues like vouchers and welfare, I can see where the other side is coming from, even though I violently disagree. There are grey areas. There are perspectives.

There is no grey area about permitting people of the same sex to marry. It is the Right Thing To Do™. The people who oppose it are wrong. I have heard no credible arguments against it whatsoever. Tradition? Bah! Have you read any history lately? Religion? Is there not a separation of church and state? Separate but equal? May I refer you to the Civil Rights movement? Threat to the sacred institution? Two words: Britney. Spears. Heteronormatively subsuming the uniqueness of the queer community? Nobody's making you get hitched - it's about not being treated like a second-class citizen as much as it is about marriage.

I am shocked and appalled by the moral and political blindness of so many Americans on this topic. I think that this struggle is one of those historic moments, like suffrage or civil rights, that we will look back on with mingled shame and pride - shame at how long we resisted and pride for those who stood up for what they knew was right.

That, and it's one of the few political trends I see heading in a direction I like these days. Gotta focus on the hope in the midst of the chaos, or I'd be too depressed for words.

Kerry, get out your cane. And thrash Ralph Nader.

I can't believe Nader is running again. Pig-dog.

As usual, Adam Felber has some choice (and hilarious) words on the subject. If you read no other political commentary today, you should read this, because it's funny and true and smart.

. . .

All my uber-liberal friends are complaining about the fact that the only thing that seems to matter to the left in this primary is electability. "Electability!" they whine. "What about a candidate whose stances we can really support?"

I'm pretty far left myself, but my pragmatic streak isn't giving my inner idealist any room to work on this one. If there was ever a time to be a yellow-dog Democrat, this is it. I'd have preferred Kucinich, sure, but talk about a pipe dream. I'll take Kerry over Bush any day, and if you still think the major parties are the same after the last three years you need to set down the crack pipe and pay attention.

I'll be voting for Kerry when the time comes. I voted for Gore (as did most of the country) in 2000. And if Nader fucks it up again by taking the Democratic margin vote, I swear I will not be responsible for my actions.

Lots of beautiful, legal weddings, and a funeral.

My paternal grandmother's funeral was this morning. I went up mostly just to keep my Dad and aunt company - my grandmother's mind had gone a decade and more ago, and this was just the burial of the body.

Still, I figured that while I was up during the week, I'd swing by SF City Hall. I'd read a lot of lovely things on the web about people from all over the nation sending flowers to the couples waiting in line, and I made some boutonnieres up (because not everyone wants a bouquet) and headed over after the post-funeral family breakfast.

So I made some boutonnieres.


And then I went to City Hall.


There were lots of people there supporting gay marriage.


All kinds of support.


And, um, the usual freaks. His sign says something about "Alien Petiable Abductions."


These girls came over from Davis High to support the couples.


This family took their kids out of school to teach them about standing up for what you believe in.


People sent flowers. This was the second of three deliveries I saw over a two-hour period, all equally enormous.


More flowers. The third delivery. But where were the couples?


There wasn't a line. Apparently, there was a line of about 300 people on Friday, and the Hall stayed open until seven in the evening (according to one couple I talked to, who waited nine hours to get their license and came back today for the ceremony.) But not today - there was a steady trickle of couples arriving and leaving, but the line that we all saw in press photos is no longer there.

Every time a couple came out (about every 20 minutes), everyone took multiple photos and congratulated them. At one point in the day, the directors of the SF Lesbian Choir and the SF Gay Men's Chorus (?) got married, and everyone kept making mistakes and congratulating the singers. Hee. In this picture, you can see some of those flowers that went in coming out. All the couples that wanted flowers got a bouquet (one for each of them, if they wanted.)


But I took pictures of the couples who took boutonnieres...at least, the ones who stayed still for me.


Awww.


Awww.



So, to sum up: There are no longer long lines for marriage licenses - couples get appointments now. The news networks are still there - I got interviewed by someone from the Washington Post and babbled something inane about "amazing acts of civil disobedience" until she noticed my hands were shaking. Business as usual is starting to set back in, though - there was a protest about street violence in the African American community taking up most of the steps the whole time I was there, and another one about Schwarzenegger was moving in as I left. The flowers are still pouring in, however, and I probably saw three times as many flowers go in to City Hall as I saw come out in the two hours I was there.

I would suggest, therefore, that if you were thinking of sending flowers, you look at some other action instead.

• Join the California Freedom to Marry Coalition (I met the women on the homepage and their son at City Hall today, very nice).
  
• Donate to Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization that has been working for gay marriage for years. From their website:

  Lambda Legal carries out its legal work principally through test cases selected for the likelihood of their success in establishing positive legal precedents that will affect lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, the transgendered, and people with HIV or AIDS. From our offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas, Lambda Legal's staff of attorneys works on a wide range of cases, with our docket averaging over 50 cases at any given time.

  When these marriages go to court, and they will, Lambda Legal will almost certainly be there, fighting the good fight.
  
• Write to the county clerk in your area and ask them to consider granting marriage licenses to gay couples. Maybe it will work, maybe not. All you can do is try.

Corollary to my last post

One of America's most famous and long-lasting couples, Ken and Barbie, have finally split.



And now, less than a week after the historic breakup, here's Out Of The Closet Ken, driving to San Francisco to become Gay Marriage Ken! That's Long-Suffering Partner Ken in the passenger seat, soon to be Honest Man At Last Ken. Awwwww.

I always knew Barbie was a beard.

San Francisco City Hall

It's things like this that give me hope for the future. I literally teared up when I saw these pictures - they capture the real beauty of what happened in San Francisco this weekend.

Pictures of some of the same-sex couples married at SF City Hall.

Despite Proposition 22 in California, despite fucking George Bush's fucking Marriage Protection Week or whatever it was, despite the sanctity of Britney Spears' oh-so-meaningful-and-lasting 55-hour heterosexual marriage, real love endures.

Congratulations to all who are lucky enough to have it in their lives.

Orange County

If Strip Malls and Tract Housing had a loveless, uninspired one-nighter in a faceless hotel room, Orange County would be their bastard child. Happy Valentine's Day from Southern CA.

W. H. Auden, "O, Tell Me The Truth About Love"

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

The Joys of Grade Inflation

Just overheard from a fellow ed school student:

Student 1: "And we got an 'F' because we were in that group..."

Student 2: *interrupting, shocked* "You got an 'F'?!?!"

Student 1: "Well, we got a 'B', but you know what I mean."

Stephen Dunn, "A Secret Life"

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant could object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend.
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

Yi Bian Commute, Yi Bian Ponder Issues of Vocabulary

Lately, I've been re-framing my dilettantism. From here on out, I will no longer think of myself as "flaky," "scatterbrained," and "easily distracted." Henceforth, in the vein of the PC linguistic contortions of the 80's, I will consider myself to be "differently multitasking."

I've always been a bit of an obsessive multitasker. I like to knit while I watch movies, listen to books on tape while I drive (though I've never found a language tape that was commuter-oriented enough to really use in the car), memorize poetry while I work out, and clean while I cook. Less admirably/successfully, I also surf the web while I write papers, compose blog entries during classes, and watch TV while I read.

The Chinese have a grammar construction for multitasking. It goes Yi bian thing X, yi bian thing Y. To do thing X, while also doing thing Y. My first year in China, my roommate Jenny and I became enamored of this construction to the point that it became a running joke: the more unlikely the multitasking, the better. Yi bian study, yi bian climb in the bathroom window. Yi bian sleep, yi bian practice your characters. At this point, I'm not sure if I found it funny because it struck so close to home, or whether something about the language infected me with this need to do two things at once. I think I'll blame China — it's the American way to blame other countries for our own problems, and who am I to go against the wind?

I think part of what I love most about Himself is his total lack of multitasking drive. When he focuses on something, he focuses, disappears into the project or reading or activity to such an extent that he has difficulty resurfacing. It's admirable, and fascinating, and totally alien to me. My relative flightiness drives him crazy - he can't understand how I can mean to do something and then get caught up in five other things and forget.

"Multitasking" has such a positive, power-suit sort of connotation to it. You'd think I'd get a lot done, multitasking as much as I do. Unfortunately....

Oooh, look! Shiny!

*runs off mid-sentence to do something totally unrelated*

See the problem?

Words To Live By

When I was a kid in the early 80s, Browns Valley Elementary school had a specific sentence they assigned to all transgressors as punishment. Not the standard, "I will not tell lies" or "I will remember to hand in my homework on time." No, the "sentence" we had to write was actually three sentences, and it went like this:

Life is a series of choices. The choice I have made has brought with it the consequence of writing these sentences. Maybe next time I will make a different choice.

Somewhere around the fifth grade, I wrote this sentence enough times that it is indeliably engraved on my brain. It's as much a part of the way I see the world as "suck it up" or "fake it 'til you make it," the only two other sayings that really get close to my life philosophy. I've been thinking of it a lot lately, as issues of personal responsiblity and choice affect me and those I love. I think what I really like about this sentence is the idea that there is always a next time, and the possiblity of a different choice. I used to write "better choice" because it was three letters shorter and when you're handwriting two hundred sentences, that matters...but now that I've grown, I think I prefer "different" after all.

*raises glass*

Here's to making choices that take us to where we want to be.