GLAAD is protesting that the Today Show’s annual summer wedding contest is not allowing gay couples to enter.  Isn’t this the same old Rockefeller Plaza three-ring nuptials they have been showcasing since Katie Couric was a flower girl?  In New York City, right?  Where the bride and groom faithfully hold up that very legal Empire State marriage license for pictorial and now YouTube posterity?  This is really a bit of deja vu as I remember joking with a NYC friend, as the New York State Senate was voting on marriage rights last December, wondering what effect this will have on the annual Today Show wedding contest.  Nothing…as the vote was 38 to 24…against.

I read this morning that GLAAD now has a meeting with the Today Show executives.  I am interested in what they will say.  I support GLAAD’s efforts, however, the whole legality thing makes it difficult.  I compare it to me going to Barney’s and protesting that the salespeople won’t let me shop lift.  Not that I have EVER done that before.  Or better yet, it’s like me lamenting my legal inability to smoke medical marijuana in New York and then asking for public signatures allowing me to toke away.  I have a prescription from home.  The point, however, is arguably mute.  It’s illegal, and it gives those in authority a more than excellent excuse to haul my ass away or in this case, legal-ease out of an uncomfortable situation.  The Today Show tweeted earlier that they were listening, but gave this link from Mediaite as a rebuttal.

It is my hope that the GLAAD conversations with NBC, and the obvious media focus, will get the next constructive conversation started.  What we should be asking the NBC powers that be is what is stopping the Today Show from holding its next summer wedding in Washington, DC or Vermont?  How about a 4th of July wedding in Boston?  Since public opinion on gay marriage is now polling in the greater than 50% part of the curve, why limit yourselves to the discriminatory confines of New York?  Surely, if you can send Matt Lauer to the most remote and far-reaching corners of the world, then Iowa seems to be the next logical step.  Right?

I was just beginning to shake off my less than three cups of caffeine morning fog when I heard on the Today show a segment referencing renting a friend.  Surely, I must be in some blood sugar stupor of post-Independence barbecue bliss.  Really?  There is a website where you can rent a friend for the day?  Yep, of course there is, www.rentafriend.com.

According to the website, over 218,000 friends are advertised for rental throughout the United States.  A quick in-put of my zip code, and there they are…thirteen pages of platonic rapport.  At first I think, what kind of an anti-social person needs to rent a friend, and then it hits me.  Gift cards!  For all those friends of mine who continually try to convince me to go camping (more now after I Tweeted how much I detest it), here for hire is Elise.  She loves infrequent showers and sleeping on the ground.  For a small tariff, Jen can two-step the night away with those who always want me to attend that Friday night country western fiasco.  Jen’s profile indicates she has no aversion to pseudo-leather shit kickers and the politics stuck to the bottom.  Thanks to rent-a-friend, I will never have to attend another bad movie, lame concert, self-help workshop, or sci-fi convention.  Brilliant.  And don’t think this doesn’t work both ways.  I see Starr is day to day for sucking up and telling me I am great…thus releasing my girl, and my friends, from enduring those pre-production blog readings!

At first I scoff, but the unfortunate reality of our time is that there is a market for this.  Sustainability is a reference used more often to our environment than our relationships.   Rentafriend.com capitalizes on the concept that a day to day sublet releases us from the responsibility of long term commitment and the upkeep involved in ownership.  Don’t be surprised that I just purchased the domain rights to Lease-a-Lesbian.  If you want a blogger with scruples, Lia is available for a small fee.

Ok, I admit it.  I saw an early screening of Eclipse.  I know, I know, I can feel the accusatory fingers of friends pointing in my hypocritical direction, but I must preface this by saying I became involved in a spur of the moment charity event.  A friend of mine was having difficulty filling a theater she had promised the distributor would be a sure sell-out for Gulf Relief.  I am a sucker for all things philanthropic and have a particular knack of helping people part with their money for a worthwhile cause.  I find most people are genuinely giving…and if that doesn’t work, guilt and intimidation never fail me.  Before I get into my blog, as this is a story about viewing the movie, and not about the tragedy off our southern states, I will say that we ALL have to begin to recognize the “I” in environment.  From the plastics we use, to the food choices we make, we all feed our collective crude addiction.  I’m not asking you to sell your car or live in a muc hut, but small choices do make a cumulative difference.  Now, on to the movie.

As I don’t live under the proverbial rock, I am familiar with the Twilight series of teen/young-adult vampire romance novels penned by Stephenie Meyer.  As reading preference goes, I simply prefer the more mature Sookie Stackhouse novels, The Southern Vampire Mysteries.  Eclipse, or partial eclipse for me as I have never seen the previous installments, is a bit of True Blood, the mature-audience HBO Stackhouse series, in training.  There is the love triangle of the confused and vulnerable female lead and the two males who love her, there is the vampire/werewolf antagonist truce called to protect the mortal heroine from extinction, and there is the good verses evil aspect…well, sympathetic evil versus non-sympathetic evil.  Alas, Twilight hasn’t gone gay yet, but let the box office plummet, and I predict the receipts will not be the only thing going down. 

Eclipse is exactly what I thought it would be…a sterilized underworld for the PG-13 crowd as there is no real hemorrhagic carnage when the undesirable vampires explode, there is age and gender specific dialogue to inspire giggles, hoots, and squirming at sexual situations, and of course, well-chiseled teen male bodies shirtless though out the movie.  What I didn’t expect was all the glandular Twilight madness from women in their, well, more twilight years.  I don’t believe I have ever seen so many overly processed coiffures of pre and postmenopausal “poofs” in my life.  I would say that my experience was a people watcher’s dream, but ladies, the tight “Team Jacob” t-shirts and the short-shorts were a bit of a nightmare.  And for all you Constitutional scholars out there, I think you will agree that bedazzled spandex is a privilege, not a right. 

All in all, the movie was entertaining and provided me with blog fodder.  I want to thank the generous and patient 14-year-old who sat next to me.  She was an observer’s delight and gracious (and patient) enough to provide me with background and fill the holes of my limited Twilight experience.  Other than my suggestion of Lost Boys on Netflix, we talked about the environment, our responsibility to it’s stewardship, the affects of an Eclipse on aging hormones, and the most pressing wildlife issue of the night…the unfortunate over-population of Cougars.

In keeping with the June is Pride theme, Sarah Palin is questioning the government’s rejection of those with experience in plugging dikes.  Well, Sarah, isn’t that the same question we are asking when demanding the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”?

I know, I couldn’t resist teasing the former Governor of Alaska with a little semantic hanky panky with homo-nyms.  It seems that Palin has been reading again, and apparently any of them, all of them, includes The Silver Skates, where the heroic boy from Haarlem sticks his finger in the dike to stop the leak.  Definitely not the linguistic wordplay I was going for.

In conjuring up images of Mary Mapes Dodge’s 19th Century book on last night’s Factor with Bill O’Reilly, Ms. Palin seemed to criticize President Obama for not accepting Dutch offers of help, obviously a nation experienced in stopping mile deep crude leaks by utilizing an old folk tale and a finger.  Sarah, we’ve been getting the proverbial finger for almost two months now, and the oil is still flowing.  Many European countries and Canada are experienced in water salvage as these governments have oil and gas programs that are nationally regulated and have contingency plans.  Why do you think BP chose deep water operations in the United States in the first place?  Canada would have required them to drill a tandem relief well, and off shore drilling regs in Europe would have required a $500,000 blow-out preventer to be installed.

Sarah, none of us are happy with the lack of a quick and definite resolution to this disaster off our southern coast.  But when accusing the Obama administration of “cozying up to the oil companies” and disregarding offers of help from those with vast experience of an event that has never happened before is disingenuous.  The drill, baby, drill statements and the like in the 2008 campaign are well documented.  When it comes to big oil and their propensity to line the pockets of politicians, no politico comes out clean, Democrat, Republican, or Independent.  Before you apply a charge of corporate influence and incompetence at the Obama administration, think about your own ticket…and let’s go Dutch treat.

Preparing for such a reveal visit is stressful.  I have an image to maintain as the soul behind the “shoe”, so I am hastily planning my wardrobe…and working out.  Hey, you can never make a second first impression, so I am doing my best to get rid of the residuals from the previously Tweeted peanut butter fudge brownie cupcakes with Reese’s cup centers.  Damn you, Paula Dean.  I know, I know, I have to forgo my plan to get Jillian Michaels to move in with me for a week, but this is more important.  Did I just say that?

Meeting a friend I have never seen before carries with it an obvious conundrum.  Will I recognize her at passenger pick-up, or will I be circling the airport in some kind of indiscriminate holding pattern while continually referring to a printed-out email picture taped to the steering wheel?  And I know that picture is at LEAST ten years old!   Facial recognition software would come in handy, but there is no app for that.

There are considerations about the house, too.  If you are a regular reader, you know I have several DIY projects in the works.  I’m trying to finish as many as possible.  I went to the hardware after work yesterday, and yep, you guessed it.  I went from last week’s male/female coupling to sockets and nuts…I can’t win.  Which bedroom for my friend?  Downstairs?  Upstairs?   Upstairs.  Smoker.  6,400 feet.  Note to self:  rent oxygen tank.  I wonder if they come in any color other than green.

Now, what to do?  It’s Pride weekend, and since the gays are in full bloom, we can take in the mile high parade of homos.  Surprise, there is no Chely Wright even though new this year is a country stage.  After her pronouncement this week “I’m super, duper gay!”, perhaps there is a special parade for uber-gays that I am not aware.  Oh, well, I will just have to free my mind (not a large stretch) to the ladies of En Vogue instead.

So, for those of you bellied up to the world wide watering hole this weekend, I’m sure we will be stopping in for a glass or two.  Let’s discuss the World Cup, our newest conquest, did she actually just Tweet that crap?, I do know how to pick a lock, and yes, maybe a hint or two about the soul behind that shoe.

Now, I’m a tinker thinker.  I have to ponder a project before I get started.  This particular project involves moving a few pipes to accommodate the new landscaping.  I take a look in the garage and I have everything except a new length of pipe, a few couplers, and a new valve.  Damn, I have to go to the hardware store.  Now, I don’t know about your hardware store, but my Ace is the place where a woman is perceived as the weakest of the herd and is promptly pounced upon by the nearest red-vested predator…the ugly shoes are no deterrent.

I try to stealthily enter from the garden center, grab what I need, run for the check-out, and make a hasty exit to safety.  Just as I thought I had made it, my shin was impaled by a small shopper-in-training cart adorned with the large red racing flag pushed by a suburban Lilliputian.  My shrieks of pain gave away my position of cover, and I was promptly pounced upon.  “What can I do for you, little lady?”  Shit.

I tried to squirm out of the clutches, but I was caught.  I explained what I was to purchase for my project, and I falsely assumed that he would let me go once my wealth of plumbing prose dazzled him.  No such luck.  He “helped” me collect my pipe and my valve, but the impasse came with the couplers.  I picked from the bin the required pieces, but was promptly informed that is not the way I should go.  Now, remember, I have this all thought out.  I know exactly what I want.  I just need to get it, and get out.  The very aiding, but not so abetting, sales associate began to lecture me on the correct male and female coupling.  I tried to interject on several occasions, but he just kept on talking.  Finally, I stuck my hand up in defiance and said, “Sir, I am a lesbian, I don’t care much about male and female coupling.”  A wink and a smile.

And the prey is allowed to escape in the confusion.  I make a hasty retreat through the garden center check-out and around the building to my car.  I laugh to myself.  Wonder what he will say to me next time I come in…looking for a screw.

Forty years and done. Another long-term marriage has reached its expiration date.  Sources close to Al and Tipper Gore say there is no infidelity, they just grew apart, and I believe them.  It’s an inconvenient truth.  Today’s society is so filled with fast-paced, mind-absorbing, time-consuming clutter that we many times tune out what is of substance in our lives.  I admit it, I do it.  Just one more report, just one more meeting, just one more presentation, just one more blog, and then I think, STOP.

I heard this morning that friends of the Gores have commented that Tipper is at a point in her life where she is wanting to relax and have fun, and Al is very absorbed in his work and his causes.  I have no idea if this is true, Al, but if it is, when I call you, I will call you stupid.  Take a vacation, the Earth won’t be that much warmer when you get back.

No matter what you do, relationships change over the years, and priorities become a complete metamorphosis of origin. You don’t have to invent the Internet, win a Nobel prize, or come out on the sensical short end of rock, paper, scissors with the Supreme Court to put stress on a marriage.  The demands of career, family, and finances seem to consume the best of us.  Just this weekend, Randi and I were humorously reflecting on our chronology and the memories of our first year.  You know, the lust year, legs over your head, “Marco”…”Polo”.  We wondered what we talked about and then decided that we didn’t.

The years, the experiences, and the trials have transformed us and have made us better.  I resist comparing our years to wine; there are some pretty bad wines out there, and they just get more acidic with age.  I guess it is more metaphorically appropriate to compare our relationship to cheese. (I know, honey.  I can hear you saying that you hate cheese, but humor me here.) We do improve with age…but we have to scrape the mold off occasionally.

I have been asked what works.  Hell, other than a lot of trial and error, and sometimes a little respectful arguing, I’m not altogether sure.  Though it’s probably too late for the former Vice President, I say turn off the electronics…all of them.  Have a real conversation.  What’s a real conversation?  A real conversation is any in-person attentive interaction that involves listening.  Schedule alone time together.  Believe me, there is nothing anti-climatic about scheduling romance.  Waiting for spontaneity in this busy world can get you a Friday night in bed cuddled up with Twitter and your cats.  Get out those fancy smartphones and do something intelligent.  Thursday evening at 7:00?  I’ll be there.  Set a reminder, make it recurring, and add a note to self:  bring small, but thoughtful gift.

What was once a mutual leap of faith is now a very comfortable place to fall.  However, it is imperative that I realize my life partnership is not a Comfort Inn where I can check in and check out on the emotional cheap.  Sometimes I have to step back, wipe away the distracting schmootz, and pay attention.  If I don’t, I deserve the collateral damage, the visceral carnage, and, yes, the eventual Gore.

No truer expression has ever been penned.  I have scorned a few in my life, and there were times that in comparison, hell would have been a vacation spot.  Conversely, I have, on the rare occasion, been on the other side.  I can attest that a woman wronged, or a woman who perceives a wrong, is not only traveling in the fast lane of the highway to hell, she is fucking crazy.

Hey, it’s all part of the healing process, right?  Perhaps.  When William Congreve pointed out the obvious in the above line from his poem, the temporary insanity of the maligned female was allowed to play out with little public notice…with the obvious exception of the matron monarch and those public beheadings.   In my day of self-obsessed psychosis, obvious retaliatory embarrassment was limited to the two mile halo of the police jurisdiction at the city limits…usually.  On a clear day, the not so cryptic musings on a water tower could be see from two counties.  Today, unfortunately, the world knows, and you can’t take it back or claim redo due to temporary insanity.

Here is my advice for those I feel a familiar kinship.  When finding yourself in front of a computer with a mental haiku or two, or in the decision process of trashy photos with children’s toys, ask yourself, “What would Sandy do?”  If any woman on this planet had overwhelming public permission to take to the airwaves and air her scorn, it is Sandra Bullock, but she has chosen to temper her words along the high road and skip the televised float-trip down the River Styx.  Not that at some point she won’t sit on Oprah’s couch or voluntarily appear on the cover of People, but at that point I would surmise that rational thought will have replaced the very human desire to get even…which at times only serves to give the impression of being unleveled.

So, own your scorn ladies, we’ve all been there and it’s a legitimate emotion.  But remember, fame is fleeting, and emotional fame lasts for nanoseconds in the therapeutic form of Dancing With the Stars.

Birthdays.  I have reached a point in my life that I sometimes forget my birthday.  No, it is not senility, though I imagine some would beg to differ.  It’s just that I have had so many.  And before you begin to wonder just how old I am, I am not referring to the collective anniversaries of that traumatic trip down the birth canal that scared me so badly I didn’t speak for a year and a half.  (Thank you, Gracie Allen.)  I am referring to all those other times I have been born.  Those times when life was breathed into me instead of those first few gasps of instinctual inhalations.

I remember my awakening to prejudice and discrimination and making a conscious decision to eradicate those sequences from my DNA.  It was a long, hot, lazy summer day in the northern reaches of Atlanta.  It was June 14th, Flag Day, the displays of polyester red, white, and blue hung limp in the stale, humid air.  I remember it was unusually hot for June.  Having quickly exhausted our supply of ice cold and freshly squeezed lemonade, my parents decided the only thing to break this heat was a day at the swim club.  Now, the swim club was really just a bogus beach built around a lake, but that was no ordinary lake; it was bottomless.  As a kid, I hung on every word of the tall tales told about that lake.  From tragic to sinister, the message was always the same…”and they never found the bottom”.  Whether true or not, that was one deep, cold, lake.  Headers off the high dive were met with layer after layer of chilled exhilaration.   On a steaming day like this, you can imagine my anticipation for immersing myself in that water.

Upon pulling up, I noticed an African-American family getting out of their car.   A girl about my age was climbing through the window of the way, way back of a station wagon…I always wanted a station wagon with a way, way back.  The family was waiting patiently in line in front of us, the girl and I exchanging “hey’s” and giggles.  When they reached the window, they were asked for their membership card before they could enter.  Membership card?  We were never asked for one of those.  But wait, we don’t have one either, hey, Dad, we don’t have one.  Where are they going?  Wait!  Frustrated at my elevated persistence, my father snapped at me exactly where they were going…and why.  It was at that moment that I realized though we live most of our lives in various shades of gray, this time, life was very black and white.  I took a deep and cleansing breath, and I defied my father’s order to get inside.  If not my new almost friend from the way, way back, then not me either.  It was a very long, hot, but personally motivating summer day…in the parking lot of the swim club.

Though I have never marked this day with any celebratory hoopla or even used this awakening as an excuse for chocolate cake, every June 14th, way way back in my memories, I think of my almost friend and the birth mark I received as a result of our meeting.  It is just one of the many longevity stains that make up who I am, each renewal a new layer, a new growth ring in this tree of my so-called survival.  Birth happens, over and over and over again as life cannot be lived by abstinence only.

When I was asked to participate in the NOH8 campaign for my city, I have to admit, I was hesitant.  I have never been involved in a professional photo shoot.  Well, I did sit for some art photos a little while back, but my face is seldom revealed, and that’s a whole other blog. Eventually, I was persuaded by the fact this endeavor is part of a larger fundraising campaign for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an LGBT charity that is near and preciously dear to my heart.  What better campaign running mate for No Hate than Erase Hate?   As I entered the photo shoot, my mind is cognizant of the impetus behind the NOH8 movement.  That, and thanks to my lovely partner’s vocalizations, that stupid song about being too sexy for my shirt and something about a catwalk.

Created by photographer, Adam Bouska, NOH8 began as a silent protest against the State of California’s passage of Proposition 8, the Marriage Protection Act passed in November of 2008 that added a constitutional provision to the state’s Declaration of Rights:  “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”  This is nothing new really.  A majority of our 50 state union have such defense of marriage acts that walk hand-in-hetero-hand with the federal DOMA.  What is uniquely frustrating about Prop 8, is that the majority electorate felt compelled to take away the minority marriage rights of same-sex couples and overturn the California Supreme Court’s earlier ruling of In re Marriage Cases that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

Now, I have blogged many times on my views about state’s rights and gay marriage, so I won’t elaborate here.  In short, it’s my opinion that until there is some sort of federal recognition of the inalienable rights granted me by the Constitution of the United States, it doesn’t matter what happens in individual states.  I agree that it’s wonderful for those of you who live in Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, and Washington, DC, but whatever you do, don’t come to Colorado and wipe out on the slopes without your durable power of attorney with medical consent.  Because if you are looking for next of kin rights, a same-sex marriage certificate will get you about as much use as a WalMart in Aspen.  As my partner and I never travel without ours, it sadly reminds me of talking to a certain dog breeder in Alabama.  He asked, “You got them papers…cause that bitch ain’t near as valuable without ‘em.”  (No offense, honey, I was referring to me.)

I was told our NOH8 photographer, Norman Dillon, is a genius.  I went to his website and right on the front page is proof…Ms. Nina Flowers in all her photographic glory.  I’m a huge fan of drag racing, and I’m not talking about Bandimere Speedway.  Norman’s studio is an old turn of the 20th century dairy converted into artist in residence lofts.  Having a love for tradition with a flare for the modern, I began to feel more at ease.   My partner is with me, of course.  I wouldn’t participate in anything that celebrates love without her.  We have survived longer than the infectious seven-year itch because we know exactly where to scratch…and yes, at times, claw.  Norman’s wife, of effervescent personality, applies the NOH8 paint.  All the while, we discuss blogs, politics, art, and Norman’s new Human Faces Project.  The first in the series will be “speak your truth” and then at some point, “what is your fear”, which prompted an entire conversation about clowns.  Norman, if you are reading, count me in.

I stood dressed in white t-shirt in front of a stark, white backdrop signifying freedom, cleanliness, and purity of subject matter…if not subject.  Duct tape was placed across my mouth silencing my vocalizations, but never my voice as a picture is an emotive scream into infinity.  As you can tell by the photo above, Norman was able to tap into some of that frustration I channel into my writing.  What is wrong with this country, this world?  Majorities are allowed to vote on the rights of minorities, elected state officials are allowed to publicly denounce the rights of students to attend higher education because of their sexuality, governors are allowed to revoke employment discrimination rights from gay citizens, US Senate candidates are allowed to incontestably compare gay marriage to beastiality…and that’s just this week!  Don’t get me started on health reform, poverty, war, and homelessness!

This was an extremely moving experience and I encourage all those charitable organizations who have the opportunity to participate, to do so.  I have heard rumor that the NOH8 brand is in the process of copyright protection, and fundraising events like the one I participated in are are no longer encouraged until the mechanism of permitted use is established.  To this I say while entrepreneurialism is part of the American dream and should be celebrated, please remember the emotions upon which this potentially lucrative product was cultivated.  California’s Proposition 8 further exposed the intolerance, ignorance, and sightlessness of the nation. Don’t allow the good intentions of publicists and attorneys to distort the vision.  The American people should own their hate, but the love and the passion behind the non-profit mechanisms of change should be given freely.