Friday, December 30, 2005
"Love child of James Earl Jones and Chuck Norris. But pale."
He works at the post office on 18th, the one next to the Journalism Building, and his name is Terry (or so his nametag says-- you can't trust nametags, as anyone who's ever been to Disneyland knows), and I spent my 5 minutes in line trying to figure out what celebrity looks most like him. Richard Gere? Harrison Ford? The guy on Wheel of Fortune? Do Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, and the guy on Wheel of Fortune even look appreciably different from each other?
But eventually I decided Chuck Norris, and told him so, which made him laugh, and he said that he's been told Charles Bronson before. He added that in order to be like Charles Bronson, he'd have to get a gun and go skulking around subways, at which point I opined that I like him better behind the desk at the post office, and he laughed and agreed: "Me too. I'd get into too much trouble," and I smiled at him and he smiled at me and in a warm, matter-of-fact tone went on "I was in the Army. I've had enough playing with guns," and then the stamps were in my hand and the people behind me in line were shifting restlessly and just like that it was over.
On the way out, I figured it out: James Earl Jones. But pale.
He works at the post office on 18th, the one next to the Journalism Building, and his name is Terry (or so his nametag says-- you can't trust nametags, as anyone who's ever been to Disneyland knows), and I spent my 5 minutes in line trying to figure out what celebrity looks most like him. Richard Gere? Harrison Ford? The guy on Wheel of Fortune? Do Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, and the guy on Wheel of Fortune even look appreciably different from each other?
But eventually I decided Chuck Norris, and told him so, which made him laugh, and he said that he's been told Charles Bronson before. He added that in order to be like Charles Bronson, he'd have to get a gun and go skulking around subways, at which point I opined that I like him better behind the desk at the post office, and he laughed and agreed: "Me too. I'd get into too much trouble," and I smiled at him and he smiled at me and in a warm, matter-of-fact tone went on "I was in the Army. I've had enough playing with guns," and then the stamps were in my hand and the people behind me in line were shifting restlessly and just like that it was over.
On the way out, I figured it out: James Earl Jones. But pale.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Survivors
and it's cold, and the ice is pretty thick, and the woman up ahead of me's going quick. Maybe she's going the same place as me, and maybe we will be trading secrets before the night is over. Maybe she's going elsewhere. Who can know?
and the doors are closed and I'm wading through the snow, trying all of them with little reason to hope, until the back back back door groans and eases open, lighter than its structure makes me think.
and she's asking me "Which meeting?", doesn't blink when I choose SIA, wondering if it's really what I mean, but alcohol's not the problem and it's not that I want to rob them, so I figure SIA's the one I need.
and she's sitting there in regal worn-out style, file folder full of stuff to read, watching my pale face as nerves push me through the door, and she doesn't recognize me, asks if I've been here before, and depending on which here she means, I guess I might have been, but I say no.
and half an hour later, they're emerging, moving to and fro, leaving as the triggers jump and fade, and she's talking and her father has her pinned under the dresser, and it's like she's somewhere else, some other day.
and the organ player's practicing, and I listen to him play, and foreign notes drift over the room like smoke, like incense, like our words, in praise to G-d and maybe other things we miss.
and they're all out in the hall, and it's over, but it's not, and they're telling me to hang in there, take good care of myself, and I'm quiet and I'm better but I'm lost,
and off I'm walking, and there's the font where the homos' babies got dunked before, two baby girls with one mother-- no, with two-- twins, anyway, and they were new and now they're newer, and I think that few and fewer people really understood what that must mean,
and here's the sidewalk with its icy sheen, crackling under my feet like the coldest hottest skillet, and the night wants me to fill it, make some kind of True Thing out of what I know.
but all I know is in the church is in the snow, and now the only place I want to go is home.
and it's cold, and the ice is pretty thick, and the woman up ahead of me's going quick. Maybe she's going the same place as me, and maybe we will be trading secrets before the night is over. Maybe she's going elsewhere. Who can know?
and the doors are closed and I'm wading through the snow, trying all of them with little reason to hope, until the back back back door groans and eases open, lighter than its structure makes me think.
and she's asking me "Which meeting?", doesn't blink when I choose SIA, wondering if it's really what I mean, but alcohol's not the problem and it's not that I want to rob them, so I figure SIA's the one I need.
and she's sitting there in regal worn-out style, file folder full of stuff to read, watching my pale face as nerves push me through the door, and she doesn't recognize me, asks if I've been here before, and depending on which here she means, I guess I might have been, but I say no.
and half an hour later, they're emerging, moving to and fro, leaving as the triggers jump and fade, and she's talking and her father has her pinned under the dresser, and it's like she's somewhere else, some other day.
and the organ player's practicing, and I listen to him play, and foreign notes drift over the room like smoke, like incense, like our words, in praise to G-d and maybe other things we miss.
and they're all out in the hall, and it's over, but it's not, and they're telling me to hang in there, take good care of myself, and I'm quiet and I'm better but I'm lost,
and off I'm walking, and there's the font where the homos' babies got dunked before, two baby girls with one mother-- no, with two-- twins, anyway, and they were new and now they're newer, and I think that few and fewer people really understood what that must mean,
and here's the sidewalk with its icy sheen, crackling under my feet like the coldest hottest skillet, and the night wants me to fill it, make some kind of True Thing out of what I know.
but all I know is in the church is in the snow, and now the only place I want to go is home.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Who Da Man?
Oh, my homos know this question. My homos dread this question, unless they are my homos who have developed fittingly snappy retorts like "G-d" or "B*tch, f*ck you." ('G-d' and 'B*tch, f*ck you': two things that look really odd when they appear in the same sentence, paralleled, right next to each other.)
Yet this is the question that legions of misinformed straight people seem to feel will best help them grasp the subtleties and nuances of any same-gender romantic relationship. "So who's the man?" "But you're both guys. Who's the woman?"
So I'm laying it out for y'all. Take a peek and decide for yourselves.
APPEARANCE
J clothing design: for women. Sometimes pink. Tight and sometimes cleavage-y.
R clothing design: for men. Men who like looking like square blocks. Although in my defense it is very hard to find a comfortable pair of shoes in women's 10.5, or non-belly-baring anything, and women's sizes are all arbitrary, so I think I'm a 16 or an 8 or a 4 or something, some multiple of my actual waist size having nothing to do with my inseam, but I never know, and it's a big pain in my butt to try on a bunch of clothes designed for She of the No Ass, No Boobs, No Nothing or for Lady NBA.
J makeup use: Occasionally.
R makeup use: Hee! If I ever tried to apply makeup, I'd probably injure myself.
J hair length: shoulder.
R hair length: shoulder plus a couple inches. And it's not even a mullet.
J hair foofage (Okay, I don't know if 'foof' is the right word, but I can't think of anything else. "Plays with"? "Styles"? "Manages to put up using only a chopstick and sometimes two strategically placed barrettes"? Because she does): frequent and impressive.
R hair foofage: little to none.
Who Da Man?: me, clearly.
CLEANING
J dish-doing: When I bitch and moan at her for several days and we have no plates or cups or silverware or bowls or storage containers left and it's the full moon and I have a valid medical excuse and Caleb is being babysat and J doesn't want to read or check her e-mail or do anything else and the hot water starts running in under two minutes and also cheesy Mexican polka music is playing next door, but definitely not when there's Mexican disco going down or when there are long-winded and dense hoop-jumpy government documents to be translated into Spanish or when Caleb last breastfed more than one but less than four hours ago.
R dish-doing: Hmmm. Let's face it, every time.
J cooking: probably once a day, sometimes twice.
R cooking: probably once a day, sometimes zero.
J bathroom cleaning: once, but she didn't get the floor.
R bathroom cleaning: once, including the floor, yo.
J kitchen mopping: once.
R kitchen mopping: once. Let's not go overboard here, folks.
J toy-picking-up: once every two days or so.
R toy-picking-up: three or four times a day.
J sewing: occasional.
R sewing: no.
J laundry-doing: if Caleb was machine-washable, this would occur pretty frequently. Unfortunately, he's not.
R laundry-doing: pretty much all the time.
Neither of us knows how to knit, although one of J's kids at the YMCA taught us how to "finger crochet," which is an enjoyable and carefree kind of way to turn your hands and wrists into mangled claws rife with repetitive-stress disorders.
Who Da Man?: Looks like J on this round.
NURTURING
J R-hugging frequency: twice/day.
R J-hugging frequency: twice/hour.
J instances of discussing her feelings: twice/day.
R instances of discussing her feelings: twice/hour.
J baby care: approximately 22 hours/day.
R baby care: approximately 2 hours/day.
J does all the breastfeeding, which kind of explains all of these numbers.
Who Da Man?: I really think me, by virtue of not having had a baby come out of my body. You just can't argue with that.
KNOWING HOW TO DO STUFF
J car-fixing acumen: impressive.
R car-fixing acumen: zero.
J directions-giving skills: awesome. And she knows where east/west/north/south are anywhere in Columbus.
R directions-giving skills: "Um, get on the big road. You know, the one by where there used to be the Fantasia Golf, but now it's a buffet or something, the kind of buffet that always gives you diarrhea later? No, not the Fire Mountain. The other big road. Maybe it's a Ryan's or something. Um, its name is a number. The road's name, I mean. Not the buffet."
J spatial skills: can fit all our earthly belongings into the back of a Honda Accord.
R spatial skills: mostly does not run into walls.
J determining-whether-or-not-Caleb-is-injured skills: WHAT HAPPENED?! OH SHIT, HE'S GOING TO DIE! CALL CHILDRENS RIGHT NOW! OH SHIT! CALEB!
R determining-whether-or-not-Caleb-is-injured skills: He's running around playing, and his vitals are normal, and there's no DCAP-BTLS on any part of his body, so I think that tripping over the toy didn't hurt him.
J dancing skills: better than she's willing to admit.
R dancing skills: super-suave and awesome to behold. If epileptic seizures count as super-suave and "awesome to behold" is taken in its original sense meaning "inspiring fear of G-d."
Who Da Man?: You know J is.
Looks pretty balanced to me, like I suspect a lot of straight people's relationships also are.
Oh, my homos know this question. My homos dread this question, unless they are my homos who have developed fittingly snappy retorts like "G-d" or "B*tch, f*ck you." ('G-d' and 'B*tch, f*ck you': two things that look really odd when they appear in the same sentence, paralleled, right next to each other.)
Yet this is the question that legions of misinformed straight people seem to feel will best help them grasp the subtleties and nuances of any same-gender romantic relationship. "So who's the man?" "But you're both guys. Who's the woman?"
So I'm laying it out for y'all. Take a peek and decide for yourselves.
APPEARANCE
J clothing design: for women. Sometimes pink. Tight and sometimes cleavage-y.
R clothing design: for men. Men who like looking like square blocks. Although in my defense it is very hard to find a comfortable pair of shoes in women's 10.5, or non-belly-baring anything, and women's sizes are all arbitrary, so I think I'm a 16 or an 8 or a 4 or something, some multiple of my actual waist size having nothing to do with my inseam, but I never know, and it's a big pain in my butt to try on a bunch of clothes designed for She of the No Ass, No Boobs, No Nothing or for Lady NBA.
J makeup use: Occasionally.
R makeup use: Hee! If I ever tried to apply makeup, I'd probably injure myself.
J hair length: shoulder.
R hair length: shoulder plus a couple inches. And it's not even a mullet.
J hair foofage (Okay, I don't know if 'foof' is the right word, but I can't think of anything else. "Plays with"? "Styles"? "Manages to put up using only a chopstick and sometimes two strategically placed barrettes"? Because she does): frequent and impressive.
R hair foofage: little to none.
Who Da Man?: me, clearly.
CLEANING
J dish-doing: When I bitch and moan at her for several days and we have no plates or cups or silverware or bowls or storage containers left and it's the full moon and I have a valid medical excuse and Caleb is being babysat and J doesn't want to read or check her e-mail or do anything else and the hot water starts running in under two minutes and also cheesy Mexican polka music is playing next door, but definitely not when there's Mexican disco going down or when there are long-winded and dense hoop-jumpy government documents to be translated into Spanish or when Caleb last breastfed more than one but less than four hours ago.
R dish-doing: Hmmm. Let's face it, every time.
J cooking: probably once a day, sometimes twice.
R cooking: probably once a day, sometimes zero.
J bathroom cleaning: once, but she didn't get the floor.
R bathroom cleaning: once, including the floor, yo.
J kitchen mopping: once.
R kitchen mopping: once. Let's not go overboard here, folks.
J toy-picking-up: once every two days or so.
R toy-picking-up: three or four times a day.
J sewing: occasional.
R sewing: no.
J laundry-doing: if Caleb was machine-washable, this would occur pretty frequently. Unfortunately, he's not.
R laundry-doing: pretty much all the time.
Neither of us knows how to knit, although one of J's kids at the YMCA taught us how to "finger crochet," which is an enjoyable and carefree kind of way to turn your hands and wrists into mangled claws rife with repetitive-stress disorders.
Who Da Man?: Looks like J on this round.
NURTURING
J R-hugging frequency: twice/day.
R J-hugging frequency: twice/hour.
J instances of discussing her feelings: twice/day.
R instances of discussing her feelings: twice/hour.
J baby care: approximately 22 hours/day.
R baby care: approximately 2 hours/day.
J does all the breastfeeding, which kind of explains all of these numbers.
Who Da Man?: I really think me, by virtue of not having had a baby come out of my body. You just can't argue with that.
KNOWING HOW TO DO STUFF
J car-fixing acumen: impressive.
R car-fixing acumen: zero.
J directions-giving skills: awesome. And she knows where east/west/north/south are anywhere in Columbus.
R directions-giving skills: "Um, get on the big road. You know, the one by where there used to be the Fantasia Golf, but now it's a buffet or something, the kind of buffet that always gives you diarrhea later? No, not the Fire Mountain. The other big road. Maybe it's a Ryan's or something. Um, its name is a number. The road's name, I mean. Not the buffet."
J spatial skills: can fit all our earthly belongings into the back of a Honda Accord.
R spatial skills: mostly does not run into walls.
J determining-whether-or-not-Caleb-is-injured skills: WHAT HAPPENED?! OH SHIT, HE'S GOING TO DIE! CALL CHILDRENS RIGHT NOW! OH SHIT! CALEB!
R determining-whether-or-not-Caleb-is-injured skills: He's running around playing, and his vitals are normal, and there's no DCAP-BTLS on any part of his body, so I think that tripping over the toy didn't hurt him.
J dancing skills: better than she's willing to admit.
R dancing skills: super-suave and awesome to behold. If epileptic seizures count as super-suave and "awesome to behold" is taken in its original sense meaning "inspiring fear of G-d."
Who Da Man?: You know J is.
Looks pretty balanced to me, like I suspect a lot of straight people's relationships also are.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Immaculate Conception
is the name of the parish my sweet G'ma Schu attends, out in Lakota City, and is the occasion for the following really lovely feminist-y homily from . . . creepy-Christian doom-sayers mid-jeremiad on the decaying values of our society? Homos distraught (for all the wrong reasons) over the ban on gay priests? The ladies and gentlemen of my field methods class? No. Everyone's favorite army deserter-- Joseph Ratzinger. Or, as he's better known, Pope Benedict 16 (XVI? VXI? IVX? XXX? Roman numerals always get me jacked up).
In fact, the more a human being gives of himself, the more he finds himself.
is the name of the parish my sweet G'ma Schu attends, out in Lakota City, and is the occasion for the following really lovely feminist-y homily from . . . creepy-Christian doom-sayers mid-jeremiad on the decaying values of our society? Homos distraught (for all the wrong reasons) over the ban on gay priests? The ladies and gentlemen of my field methods class? No. Everyone's favorite army deserter-- Joseph Ratzinger. Or, as he's better known, Pope Benedict 16 (XVI? VXI? IVX? XXX? Roman numerals always get me jacked up).
In fact, the more a human being gives of himself, the more he finds himself.
