december 2003 Archives

I'm not quite sure if this will be the entry that closes out 2003 for me, but it's not that big a deal, I guess. Chalk it up to vestigial discomfort with annual things (though annular things have played a significant role these last two weeks! Huzzah!).

I have lived for the last 6 months in interesting times. I got a great new job, and far more importantly, I fell in love. Seriously, dumb-ass, googly-bear in-love.

And a thousand other hyphenated-references.

Managing the distance thing has not been tricky, surprisingly. Having enough money and enough work flexibility to travel often to AZ takes care of that.

The boyfriend doesn't get to come up to San Francisco much, because his work isn't quite so accommodating.

I wish he could spend more time up here, though. More seems to happen. I mean, between us, not because it's San Francisco vs. Tucson. In the last 24 hours, for example, we've had dinner with my awesome friends, Rigo and Dr. Spanko. That was tonight. We hung out with Bill & Edgar this afternoon for a bit. And last night, we had a big-ass fight, followed by some nasty-amazing make-up boink-boink.

(I told you I had more hyphenated-references.)

Anyhoo, I'm sure I'll be synopsizing, given the year-end year-start time that we're upon, but for now, I hope you all get to live in interesting times. In my mind, that's not the curse of tradition; on the contrary, it's the closest thing to a blessing I can offer.

I'm not quite sure if this will be the entry that closes out 2003 for me, but it's not that big a deal, I guess. Chalk it up to vestigial discomfort with annual things (though annular things have played a significant role these last two weeks! Huzzah!).

I have lived for the last 6 months in interesting times. I got a great new job, and far more importantly, I fell in love. Seriously, dumb-ass, googly-bear in-love.

And a thousand other hyphenated-references.

Managing the distance thing has not been tricky, surprisingly. Having enough money and enough work flexibility to travel often to AZ takes care of that.

The boyfriend doesn't get to come up to San Francisco much, because his work isn't quite so accommodating.

I wish he could spend more time up here, though. More seems to happen. I mean, between us, not because it's San Francisco vs. Tucson. In the last 24 hours, for example, we've had dinner with my awesome friends, Rigo and Dr. Spanko. That was tonight. We hung out with Bill & Edgar this afternoon for a bit. And last night, we had a big-ass fight, followed by some nasty-amazing make-up boink-boink.

(I told you I had more hyphenated-references.)

Anyhoo, I'm sure I'll be synopsizing, given the year-end year-start time that we're upon, but for now, I hope you all get to live in interesting times. In my mind, that's not the curse of tradition; on the contrary, it's the closest thing to a blessing I can offer.

It's strange, but last time this happened, too.

Sam comes up to Sam Francisco. All my friends go incommunicado.

I wonder if I've been making shit up. I think I have friends in San Francisco, but where do they seem to go when Sam arrives here? I know that no one is accustomed to me having a boyfriend, but seriously. I'm left to wonder what gives.

Yes, I know this will be rectified with having dinner with Mark & Rigo, and again with my extraordinary next-door neighbors, Bill & Edgar, but other than that, I'm not gonna assume nuthin'.

It's strange, but last time this happened, too.

Sam comes up to Sam Francisco. All my friends go incommunicado.

I wonder if I've been making shit up. I think I have friends in San Francisco, but where do they seem to go when Sam arrives here? I know that no one is accustomed to me having a boyfriend, but seriously. I'm left to wonder what gives.

Yes, I know this will be rectified with having dinner with Mark & Rigo, and again with my extraordinary next-door neighbors, Bill & Edgar, but other than that, I'm not gonna assume nuthin'.

So it's the day after xmas, a day that this year involved travel and involved family NOT back in Pennsylvania. You see, I'm the only one in the family that traditionally has lived away from Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA to those in the know). Now, however, my older brother lives away from home (in Phoenix), which is near to here (Tucson).

So, xmas eve, we drove up to Phoenix and spent that evening with my brother and his girlfriend. Xmas Day, we went to friends of theirs for a rather non-traditional (but yummy) xmas dinner. We drove back to Tucson later last night, speeding down I-10 with most roadside businesses conducting business-as-usual.

Today I sit here writing, sipping coffee, while the boyfriend stands at his turntables, mixing music. We're caught in that in-between state of having finished cleaning up the house and waiting to get to the airport in a few hours to head back to San Francisco. And I figured I might as well spend some time pondering things. Y'know, cuz I'm like that.

There's a dreamlike quality for me, in being away from home (San Francisco), wherever “away” happens to be. And not always for the same reason, although the being-away is always a part of it. The dreamlike quality strikes against the axis of Time when I go back to NEPA, making it easy, sometimes, to forget When I am. As for being in Tucson, there's a familiarity after spending so much time here, so frequently, but the dream quality is all about being with the boyfriend, bounded on the ethereal side by my feelings for him, bounded on the mundane side with the disconnect between my thoughts and the muscle-memory of knowing how to navigate the giant grid of Tucson.

When I am elsewhere—wait...where else have I gone?—oh, yes, well, take Seattle. I was up thataway for the NX4 thing, but since my friend Lance and I drove up, that was simply a roadtrip, the act of collecting memories to be sorted through later, or more often, just dumped in a virtual shoebox, there for future serendipities.

But in all cases, it's what isn't changed that makes it interesting. It's me. It's my feelings for Sam. For my family. For my friends. Times, Places, People come and go, but there are certain markers—anchors, even—that, along with the horizon, can let you triangulate back to your Self.

Oh, and speaking of Seattle, a special thanks to a certain Clinton for helping make San Francisco that much more beautiful and healthy a place, though Washington may come to despise you for it one day. Blame Canada.

So it's the day after xmas, a day that this year involved travel and involved family NOT back in Pennsylvania. You see, I'm the only one in the family that traditionally has lived away from Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA to those in the know). Now, however, my older brother lives away from home (in Phoenix), which is near to here (Tucson).

So, xmas eve, we drove up to Phoenix and spent that evening with my brother and his girlfriend. Xmas Day, we went to friends of theirs for a rather non-traditional (but yummy) xmas dinner. We drove back to Tucson later last night, speeding down I-10 with most roadside businesses conducting business-as-usual.

Today I sit here writing, sipping coffee, while the boyfriend stands at his turntables, mixing music. We're caught in that in-between state of having finished cleaning up the house and waiting to get to the airport in a few hours to head back to San Francisco. And I figured I might as well spend some time pondering things. Y'know, cuz I'm like that.

There's a dreamlike quality for me, in being away from home (San Francisco), wherever “away” happens to be. And not always for the same reason, although the being-away is always a part of it. The dreamlike quality strikes against the axis of Time when I go back to NEPA, making it easy, sometimes, to forget When I am. As for being in Tucson, there's a familiarity after spending so much time here, so frequently, but the dream quality is all about being with the boyfriend, bounded on the ethereal side by my feelings for him, bounded on the mundane side with the disconnect between my thoughts and the muscle-memory of knowing how to navigate the giant grid of Tucson.

When I am elsewhere—wait...where else have I gone?—oh, yes, well, take Seattle. I was up thataway for the NX4 thing, but since my friend Lance and I drove up, that was simply a roadtrip, the act of collecting memories to be sorted through later, or more often, just dumped in a virtual shoebox, there for future serendipities.

But in all cases, it's what isn't changed that makes it interesting. It's me. It's my feelings for Sam. For my family. For my friends. Times, Places, People come and go, but there are certain markers—anchors, even—that, along with the horizon, can let you triangulate back to your Self.

Oh, and speaking of Seattle, a special thanks to a certain Clinton for helping make San Francisco that much more beautiful and healthy a place, though Washington may come to despise you for it one day. Blame Canada.

Why is it that my G4 Cube server + internet connection is rock-solid except when I go out of town? Of course, by the time you read this, I'll have restored access to the webserver.

Maybe I should rethink this whole server-at-home thing.

Why is it that my G4 Cube server + internet connection is rock-solid except when I go out of town? Of course, by the time you read this, I'll have restored access to the webserver.

Maybe I should rethink this whole server-at-home thing.

Oh, but he gives me so much more than that already.

Oh, but he gives me so much more than that already.

It sinks in more and more that I'm in it with Sam for the long haul. The longest-haul, really.

I realize this in small ways at least once a day, usually while we're on the phone, but now that I'm here in Tucson, there's a sort of reckoning of it all, and the realization that that all those small ways add up to something much larger than their simple sum. Such is the mathematics of Love, I suppose, or the physics of it. Whatever.

All I know is that the laws of conservation of mass, momentum, energy, do not apply when emotional wealth can be created by two people in love. Feeling that things get better just adds to the getting-better, a real payoff in real-world metrics.

I realized that the more concretely finite the remainder of my life becomes to my own mind, the more freely the Infinite can be applied. It sounds counter-intuitive, even flat-out contradictory, but it's true. That fixed point somewhere near or far in the future represents the only absolute I'm willing to countenance. The universe may be moving that point about, but to me it's still the fixed point upon which my pendulum hangs (no snickering).

In the face of the absolute, infinity appears. And you can measure it: what may be 50 years to someone else may very well be infinite to me.

And in my infinite time left, I know in this very moment that I want it all spent with Sam.

When gay men (straight men, too) have panic attacks because of what they might be missing by 'settling down', why do they never wonder what they'll be missing if they don't?

It sinks in more and more that I'm in it with Sam for the long haul. The longest-haul, really.

I realize this in small ways at least once a day, usually while we're on the phone, but now that I'm here in Tucson, there's a sort of reckoning of it all, and the realization that that all those small ways add up to something much larger than their simple sum. Such is the mathematics of Love, I suppose, or the physics of it. Whatever.

All I know is that the laws of conservation of mass, momentum, energy, do not apply when emotional wealth can be created by two people in love. Feeling that things get better just adds to the getting-better, a real payoff in real-world metrics.

I realized that the more concretely finite the remainder of my life becomes to my own mind, the more freely the Infinite can be applied. It sounds counter-intuitive, even flat-out contradictory, but it's true. That fixed point somewhere near or far in the future represents the only absolute I'm willing to countenance. The universe may be moving that point about, but to me it's still the fixed point upon which my pendulum hangs (no snickering).

In the face of the absolute, infinity appears. And you can measure it: what may be 50 years to someone else may very well be infinite to me.

And in my infinite time left, I know in this very moment that I want it all spent with Sam.

When gay men (straight men, too) have panic attacks because of what they might be missing by 'settling down', why do they never wonder what they'll be missing if they don't?

Greetings from the San Francisco International Airport.

It's kind of strange to be sitting up against a wall, on the floor, and have access to my server at home. Oh, I know how it all works, I mean c'mon, look at me. I'm a big nerd. It's that my “world” is becoming more and more accessible.

I've spent the last few years internetting my world, in the form of wireless access. Since Apple came out with the original Airport Basestation (I think that was sometime in the mid-1970s), I've done wireless, and I've helped to 'enable' various favorite places to have wireless access, too. Cafe Commons, the HLP, the boyfriend, all have wireless, and those are some of my favorite places on the planet.

So i opted to spend ten bucks to get 24 hours worth of access to the t-mobile network. Of that allotment, I'll use about an hour's worth while I wait for the plane to board, to take me to where I belong (by that I just mean “with Sam”, not “Tucson” ).

Am I addicted to access? Or do I just need access to my addiction? I'm gonna go with the former. I know me.

Greetings from the San Francisco International Airport.

It's kind of strange to be sitting up against a wall, on the floor, and have access to my server at home. Oh, I know how it all works, I mean c'mon, look at me. I'm a big nerd. It's that my “world” is becoming more and more accessible.

I've spent the last few years internetting my world, in the form of wireless access. Since Apple came out with the original Airport Basestation (I think that was sometime in the mid-1970s), I've done wireless, and I've helped to 'enable' various favorite places to have wireless access, too. Cafe Commons, the HLP, the boyfriend, all have wireless, and those are some of my favorite places on the planet.

So i opted to spend ten bucks to get 24 hours worth of access to the t-mobile network. Of that allotment, I'll use about an hour's worth while I wait for the plane to board, to take me to where I belong (by that I just mean “with Sam”, not “Tucson” ).

Am I addicted to access? Or do I just need access to my addiction? I'm gonna go with the former. I know me.

It's perhaps a bit unseemly to be writing about having the blues on the day that I'm heading South to spend a good stretch of time with my other half on this, the “zero wake-ups” day that has been much anticipated, but it also happens to be a day of subtle discovery. And it's not that I feel compelled to share my discoveries so much as the need to nail down my thoughts by committing them to the External.

I was telling the HLP, Stork, that I cannot wait to get to Tucson and just Be With. I'm not aching for it. No, it's far more subtle, far less conscious than that. It just Needs to Happen. (Yes, folks, I'm Speaking in Capitals now).

It's not a feeling of Less that I'm speaking of, even though I do feel a sense of less when my boyfriend and I are not together. It's not about feeling horny, even though I have been climbing the walls needing to climb into bed with the boyfriend. It's not about feeling lonely, because I rarely feel that, even when I'm in a room full of people and feeling like the One-Eyed King.

No, it's none of that. It's not anything other than the rightness of my Self and of Things, when the boyfriend and I are together. It's about a sharpness to the edges of things, a more specular world. Think of print-runs of a newspaper, where the component color-runs do not match up correctly: you can still see the picture, still appreciate the image contained therein, and the information passed is still better than it otherwise would have been.

Nonetheless, it's out of focus, or oddly-focused, enough that if you're paying attention, you can see the technology behind the magic. The illusion unravels.

Such it is for me, when Sam and I are 700 miles apart. Life is there; life is good. I get a whole lot out of it. But I can't help but see the seams, and that's just unseemly. Life is not a blur, but there exists a lack of glinting sharpness that my overactive presence of mind cannot help but notice.

All those observational awarenesses, the multiplicity of data points, just shut the fuck up for a while, for the entire while, when I'm with Sam. The Whole is Restored, and the the sharp relief to thoughts, ideas, feelings and observances tells me that I'm seeing the world with better eyes.

That's as good a definition of Home as I've come up with yet.

It's perhaps a bit unseemly to be writing about having the blues on the day that I'm heading South to spend a good stretch of time with my other half on this, the “zero wake-ups” day that has been much anticipated, but it also happens to be a day of subtle discovery. And it's not that I feel compelled to share my discoveries so much as the need to nail down my thoughts by committing them to the External.

I was telling the HLP, Stork, that I cannot wait to get to Tucson and just Be With. I'm not aching for it. No, it's far more subtle, far less conscious than that. It just Needs to Happen. (Yes, folks, I'm Speaking in Capitals now).

It's not a feeling of Less that I'm speaking of, even though I do feel a sense of less when my boyfriend and I are not together. It's not about feeling horny, even though I have been climbing the walls needing to climb into bed with the boyfriend. It's not about feeling lonely, because I rarely feel that, even when I'm in a room full of people and feeling like the One-Eyed King.

No, it's none of that. It's not anything other than the rightness of my Self and of Things, when the boyfriend and I are together. It's about a sharpness to the edges of things, a more specular world. Think of print-runs of a newspaper, where the component color-runs do not match up correctly: you can still see the picture, still appreciate the image contained therein, and the information passed is still better than it otherwise would have been.

Nonetheless, it's out of focus, or oddly-focused, enough that if you're paying attention, you can see the technology behind the magic. The illusion unravels.

Such it is for me, when Sam and I are 700 miles apart. Life is there; life is good. I get a whole lot out of it. But I can't help but see the seams, and that's just unseemly. Life is not a blur, but there exists a lack of glinting sharpness that my overactive presence of mind cannot help but notice.

All those observational awarenesses, the multiplicity of data points, just shut the fuck up for a while, for the entire while, when I'm with Sam. The Whole is Restored, and the the sharp relief to thoughts, ideas, feelings and observances tells me that I'm seeing the world with better eyes.

That's as good a definition of Home as I've come up with yet.

Thanks to Josh for pointing me at this hilarious video. (You'll need QuickTime to see it)

The only part that's not funny is that it's true.

Thanks to Josh for pointing me at this hilarious video. (You'll need QuickTime to see it)

The only part that's not funny is that it's true.

..and uses the National Pasttime to do it!

I'm breathless with it all.

Do you remember when the Chicago Cubs baseball team lost in the playoffs and blamed that kid that “interfered” with the game when he reached out and caught a fly ball, turning it from a sure out into a foul ball? Everyone expected death threats for the kid, etc. The Cubs winning anything big is as unseemly as straight men taking cultural and fashion clues out in the open from gay men. I mean really.

So very recently, the ball itself turned up on eBay, and someone bought it for approx $106,000. Yes, no decimal points.

The man who bought it was a close friend of longtime Cubs announcer Harry Caray, and has decided to solicit proposals on the proper way to destroy the ball.

So our Friends in the Midwest have fashioned themselves a voodoo doll, creating a cultural golem so that they can murder it in hopes, one would suppose, of removing the longtime Curse of the Cubs.

Extraordinary! And well done, folks! I knew you had it in you.

..and uses the National Pasttime to do it!

I'm breathless with it all.

Do you remember when the Chicago Cubs baseball team lost in the playoffs and blamed that kid that “interfered” with the game when he reached out and caught a fly ball, turning it from a sure out into a foul ball? Everyone expected death threats for the kid, etc. The Cubs winning anything big is as unseemly as straight men taking cultural and fashion clues out in the open from gay men. I mean really.

So very recently, the ball itself turned up on eBay, and someone bought it for approx $106,000. Yes, no decimal points.

The man who bought it was a close friend of longtime Cubs announcer Harry Caray, and has decided to solicit proposals on the proper way to destroy the ball.

So our Friends in the Midwest have fashioned themselves a voodoo doll, creating a cultural golem so that they can murder it in hopes, one would suppose, of removing the longtime Curse of the Cubs.

Extraordinary! And well done, folks! I knew you had it in you.

Found out that the latest Safari browser supports text shadows in CSS (it's a CSS 3 spec addition, not an Apple-only thing, if y'all care).

So I used them. Cuz I can. And because I'm going to code for MY most popular browser (that's a Microsoft Embrace-and-Extinguish spec addition, if y'all care). I know the titles are difficult to read in non-Panther, non-Safari browsers. Here's a pdf if you want to see what you might be missing (shadows, the intended font, subpixel anti-aliasing, etc.).

Consider it a small xmas present for you Panther folks.

Found out that the latest Safari browser supports text shadows in CSS (it's a CSS 3 spec addition, not an Apple-only thing, if y'all care).

So I used them. Cuz I can. And because I'm going to code for MY most popular browser (that's a Microsoft Embrace-and-Extinguish spec addition, if y'all care). I know the titles are difficult to read in non-Panther, non-Safari browsers. Here's a pdf if you want to see what you might be missing (shadows, the intended font, subpixel anti-aliasing, etc.).

Consider it a small xmas present for you Panther folks.

See? I'm not even above quoting Loverboy.

I'm crazy-stupid-doofussy in love with the boyfriend, a fact that becomes almost obstructive to day-to-day functioning as Saturday approaches, when I head to Tucson to spend nearly a week there with the Boy. He and I head back to the City together after that, and he's here until January 4.

There's an amalgam of Partridge Family, Carpenters and other schlocky stuff swimming around in my head because of Sam, and there's no stopping it. Nor would I want to.

Stooopid and goooofy. It's Love.

See? I'm not even above quoting Loverboy.

I'm crazy-stupid-doofussy in love with the boyfriend, a fact that becomes almost obstructive to day-to-day functioning as Saturday approaches, when I head to Tucson to spend nearly a week there with the Boy. He and I head back to the City together after that, and he's here until January 4.

There's an amalgam of Partridge Family, Carpenters and other schlocky stuff swimming around in my head because of Sam, and there's no stopping it. Nor would I want to.

Stooopid and goooofy. It's Love.

“Lock and load, Brides of Christ!”

Nuff said.

“Lock and load, Brides of Christ!”

Nuff said.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the capture of Saddam Hussein. I'm honestly not. I do know that I feel dread in knowing for certain that the spin the Bushies will crank up will work with frictionless machinery. The dumb-assed in-the-large Americans (which includes most of the Republican party) will just buy it. We'll see justification for the war effort. We'll see a certain bliss as the cultural E (that's ecstasy—the drug—to you in-the-large Americans) kicks in. We'll see Bush heralded as some kind of...well, honestly? Some kind of what?

What did he do here, exactly? And on what basis? I don't think it's wrong, even in this latter day world of lying crazies, to expect at least consistency in any policy from a government which purports to be a democracy.

So Saddam is/was a bad guy. A Very Bad Man. I have nothing but revulsion for the man. I'm glad to see him gone. But I know I do not like how he ended up gone. Why? Because of the dangerous precedents that Bush has set. Because of the 180-degree turn-around from Bush's “opinions” during the last election. Because Bitch-ass Condoleeza Rice's foreign policy, in light of the non-war war in Iraq, should chill everyone to the bone (“Condi” would have kicked Uncle Tom's ass to the curb, telling him that he should instead sit tight, that eventually Whitey's good-living would come to the slaves on the sheer force of its Shining Example).

But mainly? Mainly it's because the utterly hypocritical act of the Land of the Free stepping in and on a foreign land with jackboots, flexing an Arm of Might is actually applauded, applauded by Americans who, in the large, cannot get off their superior asses and Vote.

We're making wine from the Grapes of Wrath.

And you just know that Osama's getting drunk tonight on that wine, toasting Bush for taking the heat off of him, cheering Saddam's 'sacrifice' in the war against Devil America.

Y'all remember who Osama bin Laden is, right?

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the capture of Saddam Hussein. I'm honestly not. I do know that I feel dread in knowing for certain that the spin the Bushies will crank up will work with frictionless machinery. The dumb-assed in-the-large Americans (which includes most of the Republican party) will just buy it. We'll see justification for the war effort. We'll see a certain bliss as the cultural E (that's ecstasy—the drug—to you in-the-large Americans) kicks in. We'll see Bush heralded as some kind of...well, honestly? Some kind of what?

What did he do here, exactly? And on what basis? I don't think it's wrong, even in this latter day world of lying crazies, to expect at least consistency in any policy from a government which purports to be a democracy.

So Saddam is/was a bad guy. A Very Bad Man. I have nothing but revulsion for the man. I'm glad to see him gone. But I know I do not like how he ended up gone. Why? Because of the dangerous precedents that Bush has set. Because of the 180-degree turn-around from Bush's “opinions” during the last election. Because Bitch-ass Condoleeza Rice's foreign policy, in light of the non-war war in Iraq, should chill everyone to the bone (“Condi” would have kicked Uncle Tom's ass to the curb, telling him that he should instead sit tight, that eventually Whitey's good-living would come to the slaves on the sheer force of its Shining Example).

But mainly? Mainly it's because the utterly hypocritical act of the Land of the Free stepping in and on a foreign land with jackboots, flexing an Arm of Might is actually applauded, applauded by Americans who, in the large, cannot get off their superior asses and Vote.

We're making wine from the Grapes of Wrath.

And you just know that Osama's getting drunk tonight on that wine, toasting Bush for taking the heat off of him, cheering Saddam's 'sacrifice' in the war against Devil America.

Y'all remember who Osama bin Laden is, right?

Praying hands and bra-ced brains
perfect the act of making do.
The reach, the grasp, the stretch, the strain,
all unattempted, lost in the pursuit
of unpursued stasis.

But the blithe mind eyes the sky,
and glee springs free with ease.
Buoyant, ebullient, on the wing,
the bird’s-eye mind’s eye sings
to no one in particular.

Happy to be and eager for naught,
contented, full to brimming.
The gilded slope and nascient lights,
Die Tannenbäume trimming
themselves out of the dusk.

Patterns forming of themselves
is the way of things at the edge of forever.
To believe or to challenge is beside the point
when never is always and always is never
what you expect it to be.

A snapshot freezes so it won’t do
for capturing the momentless vision.
Condensing ethereal into material
exposes buffoonery in elision
of time out of space.

Unfolding blossom, unshielded hello!
And casting lot among the present.
Being the camera instead of the trigger,
finding profound the merely pleasant
illuminates the soul.

Praying hands and bra-ced brains
perfect the act of making do.
The reach, the grasp, the stretch, the strain,
all unattempted, lost in the pursuit
of unpursued stasis.

But the blithe mind eyes the sky,
and glee springs free with ease.
Buoyant, ebullient, on the wing,
the bird’s-eye mind’s eye sings
to no one in particular.

Happy to be and eager for naught,
contented, full to brimming.
The gilded slope and nascient lights,
Die Tannenbäume trimming
themselves out of the dusk.

Patterns forming of themselves
is the way of things at the edge of forever.
To believe or to challenge is beside the point
when never is always and always is never
what you expect it to be.

A snapshot freezes so it won’t do
for capturing the momentless vision.
Condensing ethereal into material
exposes buffoonery in elision
of time out of space.

Unfolding blossom, unshielded hello!
And casting lot among the present.
Being the camera instead of the trigger,
finding profound the merely pleasant
illuminates the soul.

This morning I was thankful that I had parked on the street instead of across the driveway. The driveway, you see, is only the sidewalk, and the grade of the hill has created a short stretch of retaining wall, about a foot and a half tall, resulting in a completely uncrossable sidewalk if my car is there. So why would I ever park there? San Francisco Parking is not much more than a Good Idea, and my garage, well, it's more of a carbox, able to fit my Vespa, but not much more. Certainly not a car, unless I'm willing to climb into the back seat and go out the trunk to get out of it once garaged.

There is a woman who walks her dog every morning. She is ancient; she is lovely. Her hair is raven black, and on a good day she might hit the 5-foot mark. She carries one of those ultra-light folding stools (which she uses as a walking stick) in her left hand, and the dog's leash in her right. The dog is about the size and principle of a whippet, though she's a bit sturdier of build. She carries herself, bounding, on only three legs: one of its hind legs, the right, was lost at some point. Or simply never was. She doesn't give the appearance of noticing, is not slowed down by it.

I say 'good morning' to the woman, this time I get to be first. She's always ready with a smile, a gracious hello and a lovely radiated warmth and I am usually pre-caffeinatedly groggy. This morning we spoke of the cold weather, complaints issued from me about it being too cold and offerings from her that at least it's in the 50s today instead of the 40s, 'so things are looking up!' I smiled, felt warmer.

The last morning that I saw her, my car was across the driveway/sidewalk, and she was navigating herself, her chair and her dog around the retaining wall and around the nose of the car, the narrow space between it and the garage door. She was first to speak, first to say good morning, first to smile.

I bled apologies for obstructing her path, not even attempting to explain away why it was there. Quickly she sought to soothe, explaining that she understood how difficult it was to find parking, and not to worry.

Isn't this how the world should work?

So this morning, I get in my car, as usual, and drive down to Cafe Commons, as usual. The Poisonous-Odious eX-boyfriend (heretofore known as the 'POX') is already at the cafe, and I stood in line behind him.

Now, keep in mind that he doesn't speak to me. I mean I don't exist for him, or, as it turns out, for any of the litany of others who came after me. And after a few attempts back in the day at being at least pleasant, exchanging pleasantries, even I—stubborn old me—was forced to give it up, knowing that all energies expending would be consumed and none returned in any significant good-will parry.

So, standing in line, not existing, I could listen to him speaking to another in line, and to Soonae and Jong, the cafe's proprietors and my good friends. Part of me was awed, admittedly, at the artfulness to his artifice, and the abject totality of contrivance in each word, utterance and chuckle. It is a demeanor and carriage entirely specious.

Sometimes I think the rarefied air in San Francisco is wasted in the lungs of such, but then I remember my neighbor, she of the travel-chair and the three-legged dog, and remind myself that I'd rather be like her in her 70+ years than like the POX in his barely-40.

I am home in San Francisco, and always will be. And though She traffics in good will, people like the POX will never do anything but siphon it off for themselves.

Still, what can you do but continue the good will?

This morning I was thankful that I had parked on the street instead of across the driveway. The driveway, you see, is only the sidewalk, and the grade of the hill has created a short stretch of retaining wall, about a foot and a half tall, resulting in a completely uncrossable sidewalk if my car is there. So why would I ever park there? San Francisco Parking is not much more than a Good Idea, and my garage, well, it's more of a carbox, able to fit my Vespa, but not much more. Certainly not a car, unless I'm willing to climb into the back seat and go out the trunk to get out of it once garaged.

There is a woman who walks her dog every morning. She is ancient; she is lovely. Her hair is raven black, and on a good day she might hit the 5-foot mark. She carries one of those ultra-light folding stools (which she uses as a walking stick) in her left hand, and the dog's leash in her right. The dog is about the size and principle of a whippet, though she's a bit sturdier of build. She carries herself, bounding, on only three legs: one of its hind legs, the right, was lost at some point. Or simply never was. She doesn't give the appearance of noticing, is not slowed down by it.

I say 'good morning' to the woman, this time I get to be first. She's always ready with a smile, a gracious hello and a lovely radiated warmth and I am usually pre-caffeinatedly groggy. This morning we spoke of the cold weather, complaints issued from me about it being too cold and offerings from her that at least it's in the 50s today instead of the 40s, 'so things are looking up!' I smiled, felt warmer.

The last morning that I saw her, my car was across the driveway/sidewalk, and she was navigating herself, her chair and her dog around the retaining wall and around the nose of the car, the narrow space between it and the garage door. She was first to speak, first to say good morning, first to smile.

I bled apologies for obstructing her path, not even attempting to explain away why it was there. Quickly she sought to soothe, explaining that she understood how difficult it was to find parking, and not to worry.

Isn't this how the world should work?

So this morning, I get in my car, as usual, and drive down to Cafe Commons, as usual. The Poisonous-Odious eX-boyfriend (heretofore known as the 'POX') is already at the cafe, and I stood in line behind him.

Now, keep in mind that he doesn't speak to me. I mean I don't exist for him, or, as it turns out, for any of the litany of others who came after me. And after a few attempts back in the day at being at least pleasant, exchanging pleasantries, even I—stubborn old me—was forced to give it up, knowing that all energies expending would be consumed and none returned in any significant good-will parry.

So, standing in line, not existing, I could listen to him speaking to another in line, and to Soonae and Jong, the cafe's proprietors and my good friends. Part of me was awed, admittedly, at the artfulness to his artifice, and the abject totality of contrivance in each word, utterance and chuckle. It is a demeanor and carriage entirely specious.

Sometimes I think the rarefied air in San Francisco is wasted in the lungs of such, but then I remember my neighbor, she of the travel-chair and the three-legged dog, and remind myself that I'd rather be like her in her 70+ years than like the POX in his barely-40.

I am home in San Francisco, and always will be. And though She traffics in good will, people like the POX will never do anything but siphon it off for themselves.

Still, what can you do but continue the good will?

First, yesterday, I read an unofficial transcript of when Ann Coulter was on the Phil Donahue show. It came to me by way of my sitemeter.com stats, where someone did a search on “coulter conservative crazy bitch” and found my page (score!). This is the exact searchpage. I went back and looked at the other results of that page and found the Phil Donahue transcript.

There was a bit of a disconnect with the contents of the transcript and the title of it. The title was Ann Coulter mops the floor with Phil Donahue. Now, knowing that Donahue has been around forever, and knowing he's rather headstrong, I wondered how she might have gotten the likes of him over a barrel.

Turns out, she didn't. Turns out, she screeches things like “I'm here to sell my book!” and “I'm not a namecaller, why are you?”, and that's all she has to offer. Go read it yourself. In the spirit of Al Franken and providing refutable references, it's linked above. And here, if you're too lazy to scroll up.

Then, last night, I got a private-spam from people who I grew up with, people who are like family to me. I get these kinds of things sometimes from my mom and from some others; usually they're pleasantly funny, but this one was a long, bitter “prayer” about the current state of “godlessness” in schools, and it was bitching about how you're no longer allowed to say “God”, even.

Imagine.

The first person to pass it off, starting this chain of pain, makes the demand that us godless types prove that the less that god is mentioned, the better the child's education. Specifically, he says: “OK, so tell me just one more time......we need to continue removing God from our schools because it has been proven that the less we mention God, the better our children's education has been?  Or is it because with God out of our schools, the children are safer?”

Well, those pesky universal negatives are a tough lot to prove. And by that I mean logically irrefutable, which makes them useless (see Ayn Rand).

Just for kicks, here's the body of the prayer:

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such “judgments” do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen

Ain't that a peach? So the judgy stuff in it includes: pregnant teens (and teen impregnators) shouldn't be allowed to wear tiaras; god loves guns but hates vampires, witches, Native Americans and “birth controls”; god must love liars.

It's not shocking that there are a whole mess of people out there who are only shrill and not substantive. There are a whole mess of people who ridicule gravitas instead of attempting to identify and understand it. It's just when one of your own near-family members assumes that a) you're a christian and b) trots out unfounded anecdotes (bordering on urban myth) that you start to wonder exactly how great the cosmic/karmic impedance mismatch is between people who are generally in the vicinity of my way of thinking, and the rest of country. I just don't think that culture scales to the size of the United States Entire.

That email “prayer” finished off with these lines:

Nope...I'm not ashamed at all to pass it along, though I suspect the lack of a semantic web is going to get all kinds of jesus-crazies landing on my page. I'm guessing I won't be anything like what they're expecting.

So no, San Francisco isn't really very American in its ways. But it does speak to the Divine. To quote Tony Kushner, about Heaven: ”Heaven is a City much like San Francisco.“

To quote Herb Caen, about Heaven: ”It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.“

See? We aren't completely godless. We just don't pick one way above all others to express our widely varying spiritualities.

First, yesterday, I read an unofficial transcript of when Ann Coulter was on the Phil Donahue show. It came to me by way of my sitemeter.com stats, where someone did a search on “coulter conservative crazy bitch” and found my page (score!). This is the exact searchpage. I went back and looked at the other results of that page and found the Phil Donahue transcript.

There was a bit of a disconnect with the contents of the transcript and the title of it. The title was Ann Coulter mops the floor with Phil Donahue. Now, knowing that Donahue has been around forever, and knowing he's rather headstrong, I wondered how she might have gotten the likes of him over a barrel.

Turns out, she didn't. Turns out, she screeches things like “I'm here to sell my book!” and “I'm not a namecaller, why are you?”, and that's all she has to offer. Go read it yourself. In the spirit of Al Franken and providing refutable references, it's linked above. And here, if you're too lazy to scroll up.

Then, last night, I got a private-spam from people who I grew up with, people who are like family to me. I get these kinds of things sometimes from my mom and from some others; usually they're pleasantly funny, but this one was a long, bitter “prayer” about the current state of “godlessness” in schools, and it was bitching about how you're no longer allowed to say “God”, even.

Imagine.

The first person to pass it off, starting this chain of pain, makes the demand that us godless types prove that the less that god is mentioned, the better the child's education. Specifically, he says: “OK, so tell me just one more time......we need to continue removing God from our schools because it has been proven that the less we mention God, the better our children's education has been?  Or is it because with God out of our schools, the children are safer?”

Well, those pesky universal negatives are a tough lot to prove. And by that I mean logically irrefutable, which makes them useless (see Ayn Rand).

Just for kicks, here's the body of the prayer:

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such “judgments” do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen

Ain't that a peach? So the judgy stuff in it includes: pregnant teens (and teen impregnators) shouldn't be allowed to wear tiaras; god loves guns but hates vampires, witches, Native Americans and “birth controls”; god must love liars.

It's not shocking that there are a whole mess of people out there who are only shrill and not substantive. There are a whole mess of people who ridicule gravitas instead of attempting to identify and understand it. It's just when one of your own near-family members assumes that a) you're a christian and b) trots out unfounded anecdotes (bordering on urban myth) that you start to wonder exactly how great the cosmic/karmic impedance mismatch is between people who are generally in the vicinity of my way of thinking, and the rest of country. I just don't think that culture scales to the size of the United States Entire.

That email “prayer” finished off with these lines:

Nope...I'm not ashamed at all to pass it along, though I suspect the lack of a semantic web is going to get all kinds of jesus-crazies landing on my page. I'm guessing I won't be anything like what they're expecting.

So no, San Francisco isn't really very American in its ways. But it does speak to the Divine. To quote Tony Kushner, about Heaven: ”Heaven is a City much like San Francisco.“

To quote Herb Caen, about Heaven: ”It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.“

See? We aren't completely godless. We just don't pick one way above all others to express our widely varying spiritualities.

“Ahhhh!!! Unclean! Unclean! I now have Ann Coulter shit stains on my brain.” — Jeanome

That about says it all, doesn't it?

“Ahhhh!!! Unclean! Unclean! I now have Ann Coulter shit stains on my brain.” — Jeanome

That about says it all, doesn't it?

“When I was a boy, the only role models I had were Liberace and Charles Nelson Reilly. I couldn't play the piano and I wasn't much good at Match Game so I felt doomed. Now there are countless more images of gay people on television and I am grateful for every one of them, but they don't represent that many more options. The message I hear is that it's OK to be gay as long as you are effortlessly stylish, hysterically funny or both.”

[...]

“Over a decade ago I came out to my family at Thanksgiving. This year, as they pass the cranberry sauce, they're in for an even bigger surprise. I'm going back in. I'm not planning on breaking up with my partner of five years or even turning in my collection of Kylie Minogue dance mixes. I've just realized that being gay isn't what it used to be. Prime time [television] has done to homosexuality what Disney has done to Times Square. What was once decadent and expressive has become sanitized and boring.”

--Columnist PG Kain, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 25.

Taken from Rex Wockner's Quote Unquote feature.

Now, aren't these a couple of stupid little chestnuts?

Stupid on so many levels, and off in so many directions. I have to give Mr. Kain credit for such an economy of words. I should give him credit, too, for finding the cloud behind the silver lining, for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, insult from the unforgiving jaws of a compliment.

For years, the gay powers-that-be have walked along the knife-edge, tossing around words like “marginalized” and “second-class” and have thus far managed to avoid cuts on their feet. It must be because we're all light in the loafers.

Seriously, how do they manage it? They're having their cake (“being marginalized sucks!”) and eating it, too (“remember when we were fabulous and mysterious and so out-there?”).

They're complaining, always complaining. Nothing is ever good enough. Forward motion is always in the wrong direction, progress wears the wrong colors, the heterosexual majority out there isn't coming along in the right kind of automobile.

What was it they expected? Because it certainly wasn't equality. It certainly wasn't integration. It certainly wasn't the certainty they expected.

I remember getting myself into some trouble with friends and others for simply enjoying the American version of Queer as Folk. It was shrill, they said. It was caricaturish. Didn't represent gays. Didn't give gay kids role models. Would give straight people the wrong idea.

Huh? I don't remember gay men getting pissy about Dynasty in the 80s.

And we're getting similar bitching about Queer Eye critics. I watched it a few times; I thought it was funny. And I thought it might be nice, if humorless, to have them (and their budget) brought to bear on my house and my wardrobe.

Why is it that pundits such as Mr. Kain can only paint the world with a giant brush? And why is it they think the world begins and ends with television shows? That the entire population of homosexuals moves as one and with perfect predictibility?

Straight people aren't stupid. The mainstream culture is not a uniformly beige wasteland. They're foreigners, people. They don't get gay culture because they are not of it. And why should they? Do most gay people honestly believe that because they aped straight culture that they, in fact, get it? I would not so presume, at least for myself.

Ironic that gay columnists behave like the broad cliché of the obtuse American when they proclaim that their world is the world.

Why don't they behave more like the Ideal Gay Culture they so fondly misremember?

Be daring. Be bold. Set out in new directions. Let them chase us if they so desire, but if they don't, who the fuck cares? Don't be anything at all “at large”. Be in the small. Be only the one. But expect, at every step, to be secure in basic rights, basic fairnesses. Integrate if you want, keep parts to yourself if you want. Or don't. Choose, don't complain about how other people look [down] upon you.

Didn't growing up in an atmosphere where normalcy was wielded like a weapon to make you behave complicitly—perhaps contrarily to your own desires—teach you anything?

Go back “in”, Mr. Kain, as if your saying such a thing doesn't lend credence to the arguments of mutability of sexuality (hey, someone might care).

I swear, every time we lurch forward towards equality, it's like the last-call lights have abruptly come up, and those too ossified, too rigid to embrace the dynamism of those who couldn't give a flying fuck about normalcy go scurrying into the corners like cockroaches, “inning” themselves (facetiously or otherwise), or retreating further into the good old days. You know, those good old days where the initial whiffs of bravery were traded in for whiffs of poppers, where most seemed to do whatever they liked, instead of liking what they did.

We have no leaders; we have pundits. We have whiners like Mr. Kain. We have people like Andrew Sullivan, using his pulpit as therapy. We do have well-thought, well-spoken folks like Mike Signorile, but he's no Protagonist, just an Intelligent Observer.

The old saying goes: “if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.”

Trouble is, maybe too many people just want to keep looking at tail.

“When I was a boy, the only role models I had were Liberace and Charles Nelson Reilly. I couldn't play the piano and I wasn't much good at Match Game so I felt doomed. Now there are countless more images of gay people on television and I am grateful for every one of them, but they don't represent that many more options. The message I hear is that it's OK to be gay as long as you are effortlessly stylish, hysterically funny or both.”

[...]

“Over a decade ago I came out to my family at Thanksgiving. This year, as they pass the cranberry sauce, they're in for an even bigger surprise. I'm going back in. I'm not planning on breaking up with my partner of five years or even turning in my collection of Kylie Minogue dance mixes. I've just realized that being gay isn't what it used to be. Prime time [television] has done to homosexuality what Disney has done to Times Square. What was once decadent and expressive has become sanitized and boring.”

--Columnist PG Kain, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 25.

Taken from Rex Wockner's Quote Unquote feature.

Now, aren't these a couple of stupid little chestnuts?

Stupid on so many levels, and off in so many directions. I have to give Mr. Kain credit for such an economy of words. I should give him credit, too, for finding the cloud behind the silver lining, for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, insult from the unforgiving jaws of a compliment.

For years, the gay powers-that-be have walked along the knife-edge, tossing around words like “marginalized” and “second-class” and have thus far managed to avoid cuts on their feet. It must be because we're all light in the loafers.

Seriously, how do they manage it? They're having their cake (“being marginalized sucks!”) and eating it, too (“remember when we were fabulous and mysterious and so out-there?”).

They're complaining, always complaining. Nothing is ever good enough. Forward motion is always in the wrong direction, progress wears the wrong colors, the heterosexual majority out there isn't coming along in the right kind of automobile.

What was it they expected? Because it certainly wasn't equality. It certainly wasn't integration. It certainly wasn't the certainty they expected.

I remember getting myself into some trouble with friends and others for simply enjoying the American version of Queer as Folk. It was shrill, they said. It was caricaturish. Didn't represent gays. Didn't give gay kids role models. Would give straight people the wrong idea.

Huh? I don't remember gay men getting pissy about Dynasty in the 80s.

And we're getting similar bitching about Queer Eye critics. I watched it a few times; I thought it was funny. And I thought it might be nice, if humorless, to have them (and their budget) brought to bear on my house and my wardrobe.

Why is it that pundits such as Mr. Kain can only paint the world with a giant brush? And why is it they think the world begins and ends with television shows? That the entire population of homosexuals moves as one and with perfect predictibility?

Straight people aren't stupid. The mainstream culture is not a uniformly beige wasteland. They're foreigners, people. They don't get gay culture because they are not of it. And why should they? Do most gay people honestly believe that because they aped straight culture that they, in fact, get it? I would not so presume, at least for myself.

Ironic that gay columnists behave like the broad cliché of the obtuse American when they proclaim that their world is the world.

Why don't they behave more like the Ideal Gay Culture they so fondly misremember?

Be daring. Be bold. Set out in new directions. Let them chase us if they so desire, but if they don't, who the fuck cares? Don't be anything at all “at large”. Be in the small. Be only the one. But expect, at every step, to be secure in basic rights, basic fairnesses. Integrate if you want, keep parts to yourself if you want. Or don't. Choose, don't complain about how other people look [down] upon you.

Didn't growing up in an atmosphere where normalcy was wielded like a weapon to make you behave complicitly—perhaps contrarily to your own desires—teach you anything?

Go back “in”, Mr. Kain, as if your saying such a thing doesn't lend credence to the arguments of mutability of sexuality (hey, someone might care).

I swear, every time we lurch forward towards equality, it's like the last-call lights have abruptly come up, and those too ossified, too rigid to embrace the dynamism of those who couldn't give a flying fuck about normalcy go scurrying into the corners like cockroaches, “inning” themselves (facetiously or otherwise), or retreating further into the good old days. You know, those good old days where the initial whiffs of bravery were traded in for whiffs of poppers, where most seemed to do whatever they liked, instead of liking what they did.

We have no leaders; we have pundits. We have whiners like Mr. Kain. We have people like Andrew Sullivan, using his pulpit as therapy. We do have well-thought, well-spoken folks like Mike Signorile, but he's no Protagonist, just an Intelligent Observer.

The old saying goes: “if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.”

Trouble is, maybe too many people just want to keep looking at tail.

I swear to fucking GOD that I tried. I really did. After reading Al Franken's LIES (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, I thought I'd take a page from that book (no, not literally) and go check up on Al's facts.

I went to Cunt Ann's (Coulter's) website to see what she was saying these days.

Now I'm nauseated. Literally. My tummy bothers me. She's completely off her nut.

No, I mean it. Though I am loathe to give that crazy bitch even more web traffic than all the serious crazies out there reading her stuff and giving her props and “dittos!”—wait, that's the drug-addled Rush saying—it will speak for itself. Or at least it will shrilly screed for itself.

I'll go after Andrew Sullivan and actually give him some kind of rebuttal, because even if his blind-spot is that part of his brain which causes him to be a conservative even though he's a big ol' 'mo, at least it's rational. Being wrong isn't bad, kiddies, it's just that you end up being wrong. Correct it, and move on.

Being a Cunt like Ann Coulter? Well, her stanky effluvia just ain't worth responding to in any serious manner.

Go ahead! Go see what yawning chasm of vile filth she is.

I swear to fucking GOD that I tried. I really did. After reading Al Franken's LIES (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, I thought I'd take a page from that book (no, not literally) and go check up on Al's facts.

I went to Cunt Ann's (Coulter's) website to see what she was saying these days.

Now I'm nauseated. Literally. My tummy bothers me. She's completely off her nut.

No, I mean it. Though I am loathe to give that crazy bitch even more web traffic than all the serious crazies out there reading her stuff and giving her props and “dittos!”—wait, that's the drug-addled Rush saying—it will speak for itself. Or at least it will shrilly screed for itself.

I'll go after Andrew Sullivan and actually give him some kind of rebuttal, because even if his blind-spot is that part of his brain which causes him to be a conservative even though he's a big ol' 'mo, at least it's rational. Being wrong isn't bad, kiddies, it's just that you end up being wrong. Correct it, and move on.

Being a Cunt like Ann Coulter? Well, her stanky effluvia just ain't worth responding to in any serious manner.

Go ahead! Go see what yawning chasm of vile filth she is.

My inner Drama Queen wants more. She's bored.

I love my boyfriend. Immensely. Joyously. Sweatily. Funnily. Profoundly. Physically. Sexually. Intellectually. Affectionately. Touchingly. Obtusely. Grandly. Grandiloquently (for those of you still paying attention). Desperately. Naturally. Obviously. Subtly. Fondly. Grossly. Intensely. Naturally. UNNaturally. Orgasmically. Handily. Verbally. Anally. Orally. Materially. Manually. Abstractly. Automatically. Easily. Effortlessly.

Effortlessly. Therein lies the difficulty, at least for that internal-infernal DQ I was talking about. The boyfriend and I are very different. Where's the despair over that? The boyfriend and I are very similiar. Where's the suspicion of that? The boyfriend and I smile. Too much? We fight. Too little? We are together, not enough as measured by time and distance, but together, as one, it's there, always there.

Together, to the point that our impassioned argument (see below) was so far away from jeopardizing even one aspect of our relationship as to be orthogonal.

I love my boyfriend. Geometrically. Immeasurably.