Possum Pie

Serving Drinks in Peulla, Chile

2010-02-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

We took the Andean lake crossing to get from San Carlos de Bariloche to Puerto Montt, Chile. It involved three boats and two buses, and we chose to stay overnight at the mid-way point in Peulla, Chile. Peulla has a population of 152 people and the complete list of buildings include the customs office, school, the hydroelectric turbine building, and towering above all else are the massive old hotel and the even more massive new hotel, the Hotel Natura.

Peulla overlooks a many-acre marsh at the end of the lake, and is sandwiched between two mountains that jut suddenly from the rainforest below up into the clouds. We never actually saw the top of the mountains because they're just that tall. It's quite dramatic. The pictures we have are beautiful, but quaint by comparison to standing looking at it.

There is no shopping, nightlife, or anything else in Peulla, and the transit schedules are carefully designed so that you'll have many, many hours to kill before you depart. What to do with all that time? Fortunately, Peulla is run by a tour company. Guillermo paused with facetious excitement at the notion of TV in your room, or Internet in the hotel lobby. He thought a self-guided walk was a nice idea, but clearly the superior way to while your time in Peulla was one or more from the menu of attractively-priced excursions conveniently timed to avoid conflict with your departure the next afternoon.

But in case you didn't like any of those options, you could always run from the biting flies.

Included at no extra cost, Peulla offers an exercise program to ensure that when you do leave the Hotel Natura, you will return at a full run. Every time the sun comes out, the 1.5 inch orange horseflies come droning through the air like helicopters looking for blood. And they are not easily deterred. Insect repellants are pointless. Swatting at them turns it into sport. And smacking them with anything less than all your might doesn't harm them in the slightest. First one arrives, strafing and diving, then a whole family of bloodthirsty idling chainsaws the size of the smallest hummingbird is swirling around you looking for a place to land. And drink.

Within a couple of hours, tourists like ourselves who'd tried to go on a walk and been driven back indoors sat around in the lobbies and lounges of the hotel looking at each other with blank, fly-bitten stares. Personal anecdotes of our shared horror of the horseflies galvanized us, and became conversation starters. Joanna from South Africa was horrified to be trapped indoors without champagne or ice on her anniversary. Michael from Canada had one get under his hat. Lee from Canada had been bitten on the ankle and even skipped a pre-paid outdoor excursion in fear for her precious vital fluids.

The locals, no strangers to the daylight onslaught, were full of good humor and broken English sympathy at first. But while they were not new to the winged menace, they were also too familiar with the complaints of tourists for their own tastes. The obvious comparisons to Hitchcock were apparently so cliche that by the time the third English-only tourist made reference to 'The Birds' in 15 minutes, they could no longer suppress the eye roll. "Oh, please," it seemed to say, "Hitchcock? Really? That's the best you can do?"

Peulla was wonderful in all other respects. The views were amazing, and once evening started to bring temperatures down the flies settled in for the night, savoring the taste of fresh blood on their proboscides. Jeff and I fearfully sniffed the air and once we were certain all danger was past, we left the hotel under the cover of an early dusk. We spotted five waterfalls, at least a dozen native plants we consider to be exotic, and took lots of pictures without anyone in them. Given the extreme remoteness and the short supplies they had on hand, Hotel Natura's staff managed to prepare excellent cuisine.

The pictures will tell the tale of our night and day in Peulla, but we will always remember it for its predators. Peulla. Come for the vistas. Stay for the excursions. And run for your life.

A Compassionate End

2008-11-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

From the moment Head Chef and I decided to raise birds for meat, we knew it would mean killing them. Yes, the joy of holding day-old chicks in your hands and raising scruffy young birds into beautiful specimens is a big part of the fun. But the killing was a part of the process. Part of these birds' life cycles.

So we did a lot of reading on compassionate butchering techniques for the backyard flock. And we gasped at the horror of factory farm techniques that often enough entail dismembering live animals. Not dead or unconscious birds, but fully awake, screaming creatures, being plucked and quartered for the American table.

We knew we could do better in our sleep. We could do better than that accidentally. So we raised our birds with attention and care, and planned for their respectful, quiet end.

We think they have had marvelous lives. They receive as much good quality feed as they can eat, table scraps, and as much roughage as they can forage on the three acre yard we have enclosed around the house. We shoo them from the flower garden whenever they start to dig, but they've had their way with it anyway. They obviously love the soft moist soil and the insects that live beneath the surface. The flock of turkeys and chickens runs to us when the see us, so we think they're happy with us, and by extension, their lives.

But Thanksgiving is coming, and that means it's time. Time for two turkeys and a guinea hen.

So yesterday we set up the ladder, a table, and filled the turkey fryer with water. The water approached 150 degrees so we went to the coop and selected a turkey hen.

The birds were all locked up to prevent roaming, as it wouldn't be appropriate to have them pecking around as we sealed the fate of their peers. And within, we wrapped Hurty Gerty within an old bath towel and covered her eyes.

Gerty was a broad breasted bronze turkey, another of those unthinkable abominations we humans have bred from something wild and noble. Wild turkeys are quick, agile, and such good flyers they can leap 20 feet vertically into a tree, or fly for hundreds of meters across the treetops. But broad breasteds have a unique genetic mutation that causes their breast muscles to overdevelop. They become so large that they waddle awkwardly when they walk and are completely incapable of flight. But their instinct-driven brains don't know that. So they manage to get to high perches they can't get down from. Then believing they can fly, they plummet to the ground like bowling balls with pointlessly flapping wings.

And this is how Hurty Gerty got her name. One night she managed to hop from limb to limb up to a reasonably high branch in a pine. The following morning, she spread her useless wings and fell to earth, tumbling across the ground like a snowboarder who's just edged in at 35 miles per hour. By the time she stopped rolling, she had damaged one leg. Gerty was now hurty. She refused to move on her own for days. We lifted her and moved her to the food, then the water, and watched her carefully. But she was improving. Eventually, she walked on her own, but never without a slight limp in each burdoned step.

So yesterday, with her eyes covered, Gerty fell calm. She stopped struggling in Head Chef's arms, and just sat silent. This was what we expected and were surprised none of our research had suggested. Most birds have terrible night vision, and so moving about at night is a bad idea. In fact, if you're a bird, remaining calm and quiet is the best bet for survival whenever it's dark. So barnyard fowl benefit from this same effect. Cover their eyes or make it dark, and they feel calm and stop moving.

We felt that making use of this instinct was a critical step in the compassionate experience we wanted to be these birds' last minutes. The bird would be calm and quiet, making it less stressful for everyone. They would be cooperative in their last moments, and they would not become alarmed, struggle, or call out.

And we were more than satisfied with the results. We tied Gerty's feet together, and cradling her massive weight within the towel, we slipped the hook between the ropes we'd strung from the ladder. She was relaxed, and her breathing was slow. We thanked her for being a good companion and for making this so easy on us. Head Chef pulled out the knife and made one quick and decisive cut across the neck, and I released her weight so that she hung by her feet.

Head Chef was moved. He was flushed and we stepped away for a few seconds and I hugged him. He breathed heavily a few times. It was tough to take a life, but we said nothing. This was the food chain in action, and we were trying to be responsible participants in that process.

Gerty lost consciousness within a minute, and as she hung bleeding, she never called out or struggled at all. Within three minutes her breathing stopped and her brain was dead, and we removed her body from between the ladder and began the process of dressing her for the holiday.

The process was not nearly as yucky as we expected. Head Chef removed the head and we dipped the body into the hot water and counted to 25, then moved it to the table and began plucking. The feathers came out in generous handfuls. We discovered that a 25 second bath had been too much, and some of the skin was fragile as result. But we managed to deal with the repercussions without tearing the skin.

Then Head Chef cut around the vent without severing the intestines, and reached up into the body cavity, removing the package of organs without any trouble at all. We rinsed and tidied the body one more time, soaked it in a cold water bath, and bagged it. It looked exactly like a thawed bird from Safeway. A 25 pound bird. It was amazing. And the process had taken us just under an hour.

Gerty and an unnamed sister of hers now sit in the freezer. One will be shipped to Head Chef's mother for her own holiday, and we will enjoy Gerty here at our home with family and friends.

It is odd to have meat that has a name, but it also seems OK. Hurty Gerty had been dealt an unfortunate card upon conception. She would be a monstrosity, and butchered before her first year. But we feel grateful that we got to hold her as a chick, raise her into an impressive bird, nurse her wounded leg back to function, and say thanks before taking her life ourselves.

It's been rewarding, humbling, and empowering to know her. Thanks, Gerty.

Subversives With Lawyers

2008-11-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Subvert the will of the people?

If the people are wrong, then I would argue that it is not only right to subvert the will of the people, it is our duty.

When a majority places their own interests above the interests of a minority at the expense of the minority, that's called tyranny of the majority. Hurting people just because you don't like them is wrong.

Third graders know that. Third graders would not have voted for Proposition 8.

But a slim margin of Californians voted tyrannically.

So will we attempt to subvert their will? Most definitely. Utah Phillips has said, "Freedom is something that you assume, then you wait for somebody to try to take it away from you. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free."

We will be free.

The Americans California Forgot

2008-11-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

Obama knows what Californians forgot. From his acceptance speech last night:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

I actually gasped upon hearing that. Gay? Gay and straight? The forty fourth president of the United States acknowledged that I exist, and that I am an American. I didn't even hear his next few sentences. I just felt so included that nothing else mattered for some moments.

Not even Proposition 8.

Obama opposed Proposition 8, the one that Californians passed last night. The one that, like so many others, defines me as less American than the straight people President-elect Obama also acknowledged. It's desperately sad to me that Obama knows about the American dream - about equality and liberty and the pursuit of happiness - but that the people who elected him don't.

Californians forgot that we're all Americans. Californians, of all people.

Or did they? Going into election day many polls indicated that No on 8 still had a lead. And that means anonymous Californians lied to pollsters. Why would they lie if they're anonymous? Because they were too ashamed to tell the truth. Californians knew what they were about to do was wrong.

Obama knows that to bouy the country, we must lift all people up. And that to discriminate against any group drags us all down. Part of me thinks that Obama has the power to bring us together. Part of me believes that in time, if he remains persuasive and dedicated to that ideal we will realize, as a people, that to truly prosper we must uplift all Americans.

To do anything less hurts us all. And although on this day I am not a full American, I still have hope.

Prop 8's Supporters, and a Letter

2008-11-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

I know that, by and large, if you read my blog, you're a part of my choir. Which is to acknowledge, of course, that if I make a point and I intend it to be public, I'm just preaching to the converted. Which is probably pointless.

But I can't help it. No on 8. No on 8. NO ON 8!

What I am most struck by is this:

Those who would lay claim to the greatest achievements of piety and grace are bearing false witness in order to hurt and oppress others. And, it would seem, they are doing it for at least partially prideful, even gluttonous purposes. They want marriage for themselves, and they don't want to share.

I have a much easier time with high school jocks yelling 'f*!^king fags!' out a car window. They are grappling with what it means to be themselves, and part of that is demonstrating their idea of who they should be to their peer group. They're immature and it's shameful, but it's not who they are.

But these 'Christian' people tell lies to change public opinion and actively and at great expense try to hurt other people. How on earth are we supposed to accept that they are loving and pious? How in their god's name could anyone - including their god - think that the path to righteousness is paved in lies and the oppression of their neighbors?

They believe in this afterlife filled with reward or damnation and for their sake, I hope they're wrong. Because if there is an afterlife and we are each judged as they believe we are... Their afterlife is gonna be all kinds of hell.

------- Part 2 --------

Dear No On 8 Christian,

I know, I just painted you in a terrible light. I just lumped you in with Christianists, people who are not merely content to worship the way they choose, but whom wish to force all citizens to live by their tenets. People who wish to abolish the separation of church and state, as well as freedom of religion.

That was unfair. And I'm sorry. But you have to understand.

You mention your gay buddy or sister to a coworker and in their minds they picture a category, not a person. I personally think categories are useful, but they come with burdens, too. As a gay man, I have to constantly combat any number of stereotyped behaviors associated with men in my category. Drag queens, ACT UP clones, park cruisers, etc.

But I do, through my own example and words, illustrate that I, as a gay person, am not like those people, and that they do not represent all gay people.

Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Republicans, Liberals, Women, and Teenagers also have to deal with these categories. It's no big deal, and it's not personal.

You are voting No On 8. And for that, I thank you. But you are a Christian and that puts you in a category, too. So it is your burden to illustrate that you do not lie. That you do not oppress others. And that you do not wish to legislate your faith and in so doing eliminate Americans' rights to worship or not as they choose.

This is your burden. The voting ends on Tuesday. I'd recommend you start now.

There's the phone. Start dialing.

Thanks,
Pastry Chef

The Crazy Hobo and The Mule

2008-10-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

Our story begins with a neighbor. But not your typical pleasant-but-not-overtly-friendly sort of neighbor. No, this starts with a stupid neighbor that came fully equipped with a vicious sense of entitlement. No extra parts to buy!

Trust me when I say he's stupid. I do not label people 'stupid' lightly, but when I say he is not intelligent, it's because I truly believe he lies along the Simon-Binet IQ scale in the region of 'moron'. But my evidence for that is another entry entirely, and I digress.

We had just moved into the neighborhood and the first time we shook hands he had advice for us. To paraphrase, 'You're my bitches until I say otherwise.'

That came as a surprise. Head Chef and I are not the servile sort. And upon our first meeting, it seemed unlikely he'd already know whether or not to expect us to behave obsequiously.

But to prove that we were, in fact, his playthings, Neighborstopheles decided he was going to start tampering with the water to our house. As it pleased his whim, he would turn off the main valve to the house at its source, well out of view from our home.

We'd find the water off and hike up the hill to turn it back on. Three to five times a week. Sometimes more than once per day.

When we asked him to stop, he ignored us. He didn't say 'no,' or leave a note explaining why he would not stop. There was just emptiness, like a void. It was as though we were sending emails and leaving notes for our imaginary friend.

We were nothing if not patient. But after three months of tampering with our water, he made a fateful error. One day, Neighborstopheles disconnected our water line altogether, damaging some of the piping in the process. And with that simple act of annoying, passive-aggressive tampering, 'Stophels set in motion a series of events that might well become the subject of the heroic songs of future folklore.

I flew into a rare rage. I was working alone to repair the damage to the water piping, and my blood adrenaline and testosterone levels were at saturation. My brain stem was taking over, transforming me for battle, and I was surging toward the embodiment of righteous anger, revenge, and harm. I muttered to myself staccato bursts of hate for my unrepentant foe.

And at the point in my anger arc at which I become most deadly, he came down the road. In thirty-six years, only seven people had ever witnessed my fury at it's height, but 'Stophers would become the eighth that day. 'Stophs drove a mule - a sort of cross between a dune buggy, a four-wheeler, and a mini truck - and when I stepped into the road, I spread my arms into the broad gesture of a man saying, "bring it on, son."

'Stophs had no intention of direct confrontation, and I no doubt radiated physical threat. Faced with the choice to stop or try to pass by, he chose for escape. But rather than try to avoid me, he drove straight in my direction as though to hit me. So I jumped back to avoid the little buggy truck and then sprang onto the side of his vehicle, clinging to the frame tubing.

He panicked and began to speed up and swerve. To knock me free of the mule, he ran the right side through brush and made for trees. But I held fast and yelled threateningly at him, bellowing demands that the tampering stop or he would suffer consequences.

Finally he began to speed into a hairpin turn. I knew my car was parked on the other side and I felt the mule's tires slip on the road beneath us. I judged that he might be losing control, and rather than have the vehicle tip over on me or hit my car, I jumped free.

Moments later a friend's car came up the road and slowed to where I stood. She rolled down the window and peered out at me with a perplexed grin. She said nothing for a moment, assessing me.

"You jumped on Neighborstopeles' mule? " she asked incredulously. I admitted that yes, I had. My heart was still racing from the adrenaline that fueled the encounter.

"I was fixing my makeup in the mirror and almost hit him. He told me I should be careful; some crazy hobo with a white car jumped on his mule up the road." She paused again and looked at me like she'd just discovered some dirty and pleasant secret about me, and she really liked it.

I thought I had misunderstood her. "Hobo?" I repeated back to her.

She grinned and thought for a second and then shook her head, saying, "Maybe he meant crazy homo..."

Or maybe he did say 'crazy hobo.' Whichever it was, jumping on his mule seems to have done the trick. We've had water at the tap ever since.

Next Note

2008-10-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

I don't know how old I was when it happened. But I'm sure I wasn't even twelve.

Given that I was so young, it seems a little odd to think I was sitting quiet on the living room couch in my family's home. But I was. Just sitting, listening to music. I wasn't bounding or chasing or leaping. I suppose I wasn't that sort of child.

Though my parents had both come from suburbs of Los Angeles they were still a product of their era, and they listened to folk music. Normally, Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks, It's A Beautiful Day, or The Mamas and The Papas would be playing on the eight track stereo. Several songs would play. Then there would be the customary click from the machine while the device repositioned itself to read another stream of analog from the reel. And the music would start again.

That particular day something was playing that I had never heard before. And I remember sitting in awe as it occurred to me that I knew what the next note was. I don't recall whether it was a melodic or harmonic note, but I frequently knew what came next. I was spellbound.

The house was otherwise quiet and my father walked through the room. He must've recognized that something was puzzling me as he asked, "Hey Posspie, what's up?"

I told him that I knew what the next note was. He was standing behind me and I had not turned to face him, so I could not see his expression. But there was a pregnant pause before he responded, "Well, honey, that just means you're growing up."

And then he continued on his way out of the room.

I was so proud. I was growing up.

Vegas On The Drive Loop

2008-07-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

I had a boyfriend many years ago who was incapable of driving past a reservation without stopping for a few pulls on the big money slots. If we didn't stop, he got edgy like a smoker on a long flight. But I always thought he had many other better ways to spend all that money, and I think I've found one he might even enjoy.

I was never a gambling man myself. Oh sure, I could understand playing nickel slots for a couple of hours. I could see spending fifty dollars and calling that the price of entertainment. But hundred dollar slots? Thousands of dollars gone over the course of a single evening?

No way, that's not my idea of fun. That's what I call stress. Just the simple knowledge that I could be spending that money doing something useful or more lasting is enough to ruin the fun. But then, add in the pressure. Given the much higher stakes, I am painfully aware of the importance of winning back what I am losing.

Out here we have casinos too, but we have no municipal water source. Instead, we buy our drinking water in town and we rely on surface springs that run all year, water tankers that come up every few weeks, and wells. But year-round springs are rare and the endless parade of tankers can become expensive over time so a well, if you can get a productive one, is a wise investment. Since my spring gets thin each summer and access to it is shared with fiercely competitive neighbors who wish to usurp my water rights, a well seemed imperative.

But well drilling is just like gambling. There might be water a few feet down, but you'll never know unless you drop some cash into the hole and see if it floats back to the top.

We've been drilling a well for weeks now. And we definitely have water on our property. Each time we put the drill down into the soil, we have water bubbling up after a few dozen feet. But oh, the complications.

At the first location there was the dreaded black sand that you can drill through but then collapses and settles into an impermeable concrete layer, ruining the well after you've nearly finished it. The eighty foot shaft filled with water by itself to only fifteen feet from the surface, but we couldn't get the water out. So we moved to a new location.

Then there was the diamond vein that couldn't be drilled through at all. So we moved to a new location.

And then, most recently, we set up the rig on the drive loop. It seemed like a good spot. And sure enough, we drilled to only thirty feet and signs of water started trickling in. But there were problems. The rig was vibrating off its footings, causing the drill stems to flex inside the drill shaft and destabilizing the well as it went.

And then, after correcting the drill's positioning twice, the drill bit and ten feet of drill stem separated from the rest of the machine forty feet down. And as we prepared to give up on the location and abandon the equipment at the bottom of the well shaft, the water level rose four feet in an hour. More water we couldn't have.

So we're going to throw the dice again in a new location. And as we prepare to grind away eighty or one hundred more feet of rock, I cannot help but be reminded that I am no fan of gambling. Especially when the stakes are high.

Four Alarm Fowl

2008-07-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

The California wildfires have been astonishing thus far and we haven't even seen them. As a pleasant little gay boy from the wetter side of Oregon I was completely unfamiliar with the horrors of a wildfire. But here in NoCal, we've been socked in smoke for over a week. Women have taken their newborns out of state to spare their lungs, and neighbors wear respirator masks.

I imagine the effect is like taking a little drag off a cigarette with every inhalation. In fact I must admit that although I pride myself on superior health and resilience, I feel as though I am becoming victim to the plague of wildfires. My throat is scratchy, I wake with a cough, and Head Chef and I have both fallen into a sort of inexplicable lethargy. Are we just especially lazy, or is it something more?

Lying around deprived of oxygen has given us plenty of time for contemplation and conversation. Among the many revelations we've had is that guinea fowl is a suitable substitute for pheasant in fine restaurants throughout Europe and North America. Who knew?

Guineas are actually a wonderful multi-purpose bird. Although they look like decorative chicken-vultures and are capable of incredible amounts of noise, they are also effective organic alert systems. Anything out of the norm causes them to raise the alarm. Furthermore, they are ravenous insect eaters. They can consume so many of the ticks that cause Lyme disease that some rural counties give them away in pairs to help people control ticks. All this, and delicious too?

Were it not for their potential delectability, we might not have even considered it. But in all the haze and apocalyptic gloom of the fogs of wildfire smoke, we started picturing a few of ours as roasted, dressed, and presented on a platter a la Bugs Bunny.

It's not that smoky environs make us hungry. No, we had other reasons.

At first, we couldn't quite put it together. Before the smoke was even detectable by mere humans, the guineas were raising a mighty cry. And they did it for all their waking hours. Unceasingly, from 4:30am to when they went to roost in their tree for the night. Then the smoke became visible, and then we could smell it. And still, the guineas called.

They gave themselves dust baths in the drive, screaming the alarm. Not acting frightened. Just screaming. If they had been a baby, we would have shaken them. So we went to town and bought a pellet gun. All the better to silence them.

As we drove, we talked about why this sudden change in behavior might have occurred. Were they reaching maturity and establishing their territory? Were they trying to keep the flock from wandering too far apart? As African prairie birds, we knew their instincts to stay close together would be strong, but this was ridiculous. Frankly, it drew a lot of attention. An animal attempting to avoid predation doesn't do that just for fun.

And so, in between coughs and while trying to peer through the drifting smoke at one another, it occurred to us that perhaps they were staying on high alert because of the smoke. That would be one reason they might not mind making themselves noticeable. If the prairie's on fire, predators are probably a secondary concern.

So we put the gun away, and decided to wait for Cal Fire to put a damper on the flames. Today we have nearly clear skies. We can see each other from across the yard, and can even spot the mountain across our valley.

And the guineas? Well, they have quieted down significantly. They shall live to be eaten another day.

Skunk Incursions

2008-04-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

As a test of whether predators could get into our new henhouse, we laid bait inside and locked it up. Our chicks are still young and a few weeks from being ready to be outside on their own, so this seemed a reasonable precaution.

Sure enough, about three days later we discovered part of the bait had been taken. And there was some digging inside the coop, too. But the animal that had been digging had been trying to get out, not in. Weird.

So then a few days later we checked again, and this time the animal had practically trenched out the entire building trying to get out. It had been really, really trapped. But it appeared it had escaped by digging about two feet under some buried wire, so I took a couple of hours to repair and reinforce the entire building perimeter and extend the underground wire where it had exited. Finished with my reparative duties, I rebaited, and locked the coop.

A day later, Spooty Dog went out for her morning constitutional and patrol, and started barking so incessantly that we went to investigate. Skunk in the henhouse! Spooty Dog had antagonized it from outside the coop to such a degree that it had sprayed everywhere. Thankfully, it had mostly missed her, but of course she did get a dose of it.

Since there was no evidence that the skunk had actually gotten in, only that it was having a devil of a time getting out, we figured we had trapped this animal in when we first locked the coop up. It hung out, ate the bait, escaped, and went back in only to be trapped a second time when I fixed its new exit/entrance.

But by this point, that didn't matter. The henhouse smelled like a skunk bomb, our chickens in the house would need the coop soon, and this animal just wouldn't leave. It was under the henhouse stamping it's little feet and preparing to spray us over and over. We did everything we could to try to shoo it out from under the building, but it wouldn't leave. And it was impertinent about it. It flaunted its ability to stand its ground, and it teased us.

Well I'd never seen him do anything like it before, but Head Chef just kinda snapped. It don't know, maybe it was 'mountain fever', or the skunk's attitude and Spooty Dog's barking, or all of us standing around getting nothing resolved. Head Chef just muttered a few curses and got kinda white in the face and scrambled under the henhouse after the skunk. I was in awe for a second and then yelled after him - what was he thinking!? But he rushed it on all fours and grabbed it like a naughty cat even though he was retching from the stench, and pulled it out from under the coop with his bare hands. It was scrambling and scratching to try to get free, making these freaky little chirping noises, and spraying wildly. Head Chef was hit, and the yellow stuff was dripping down his shirt in oily globs like warm butter-flavored Crisco.

He got to his feet and I guess this was the point that reason came back to him. Still holding the skunk, he looked down at himself and at the skunk, and vomited piteously. He dropped the skunk, who ran off away from the henhouse and us. Head Chef hurriedly stumbled toward the house while trying to get out of his clothes and yelling about how it burned. I had ahold of Spooty Dog, and together we rushed ahead and turned on the outdoor shower. I grabbed the skunk remedy makings we keep stashed - some baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and dish soap -and provided them to the shaking and now somewhat panicky Head Chef.

He showered for probably 45 minutes and then did it again three more times. Even then he swears he can smell it and it's ruined the taste of food for the past three days. I guess he got some up his nose? To avoid laughing at him, I have to call on all my self discipline when I watch him try to wash out the inside of his nose ...

Head Chef vacillates between claiming he's a real man for grabbing a skunk with his bare hands, and between seeming pretty embarrassed for behaving like a crazy, feral mountain man. Although he can kinda laugh about it already, I am forbidden from laughing or I get in trouble.

I'll get to do that later, I guess.

Being A Red Shirt

2008-03-02T08:41:00.001-08:00

Many years ago I came into possession of a red shirt with a subtle pattern printed on its front. But it wasn't just the flattering cut that was so appealing. The color was perfect. It was red, yes, but it was just burgundy enough with just the right pinch of fire engine, and this ideal red among reds made me feel like I was brilliant without being overstated. I could've painted my world in that color and been so content. And on the front was a printed hibiscus blossom so subtle as to be all but unidentifiable.

It was flawless. And to reward this red shirt for its extraordinary nature, I wore it constantly. First out of the dryer, first into the wash. It was perfect with jeans, cargos, shorts, or just socks. I wore it for years with such frequency that I'm sure friends thought I owned few others. But it was no matter to me. This shirt was so simple but great in the pleasures it brought me.

As we grew together, the red shirt developed little signs of wear. The telltale pinprick holes around the belly button signaled a truly beloved garment that might have been discarded had it been less. But this was a red shirt, and I wore it and its age with pride.

One day I met a new friend for lunch, and we were chatting easily when he commented, "that's a cool old pink shirt." I laughed and corrected him without even looking at it. It's red. Haha, how silly. And then I realized it wasn't red. It had been loved so much, laundered so often, that it had become pink in its old age. It wasn't a red shirt any more. But in my mind's eye, my red shirt was always red. Had always been red. And I would always love it.

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Head Chef came home from work one day laughing about a conversion he'd had with his coworkers. They had been chuckling with him about life as a bald man and they'd asked him how I felt about being bald. And he laughed and corrected them without even thinking about it. I wasn't bald, he told them. Haha, how silly.

So, as we drove to dinner, I pointed out to him that for all practical purposes, I am basically bald. And I told him about my red shirt.

He looked at me with astonishment and realized that in his mind's eye I had always been the one of us with hair. That he still saw me as that 26 year old kid with the blonde hair.

And he reassured me that no matter how far into pink I faded, I would always be his red shirt.

Princessitude

2008-01-30T14:11:00.000-08:00

I was going to the wood shed to chop wood, and I needed a flashlight as it was already dark. Sadly, the electrical in the shed doesn't work, and no one could come with me, so a visitor offered her head lamp. It's a tiny LED flashlight mounted to an elastic headband, and it's pink and very fancy.

"Oooh," I swooned facetiously. "The fancy pink one, no less!" I turned it on and pulled it around my head.

She smirked and took on a regal air and said, "Oh yes. Don't you just feel like a princess?"

I responded with a simple affirmative and went out to the shed to batter the wood into usable shapes for the furnace indoors. But as I swung the axe over my head and tossed the split logs into my wood tote, I wondered if I really did feel like a princess, or if I even could.

I wondered whether people who feel like princesses even know. How would I know if I felt like a princess? So I imagined what a princess would feel like. And I developed a mental list, some of which I've surely forgotten by now.

1) Very important, like her opinion really mattered.
2) Like she could say or do almost anything at all with few repercussions, if any.
3) Universally loved.
4) In charge - like she could delegate things she didn't want to do.
5) Kind.
6) Generous.
7) Like she had a certain lightness in her step and a rare grace.
8) More intelligent than most people, if not everyone.
9) A greater judge of fashion than just about everyone.
10) Enviable.

Based on this list, I found myself lacking in the proper qualities a princess might possess. Out of the ten possible princessly properties I imagined, I could only lay claim to perhaps four. And even in some of those, my credentials seemed weak, making my claim to feeling like a princess a dubious one.

It was with great shame that I returned with my wood tote full, but my heart empty. For I had to admit that I did not, in fact, feel like a princess. And all the pink LED headlamps in the world could not help me.

Epiphanies at The Mall

2008-01-01T22:33:00.000-08:00

Head Chef and I have been so busy moving out, moving in, shuffling around, driving both to and fro, and just generally finding things to occupy us outside the common current of human civilization that we've become a little more authentic.

Authentic? Oh, that sounds euphemistic, and I suppose that's a fair criticism. But while not completely unkempt, we're definitely a bit less kempt. You might say we've allowed our appearance to get a bit rugged, without going so far as to call us feral.

My mustache has gotten rather long and my neck goes well more than a week without shaving, granting me a wilderness creature affect that is actually quite fetching if I may say so myself. I bathe daily, but I might pull on yesterday's shirt because it's not visibly dirty and isn't malodorous yet. And Head Chef is no more or less relaxed in this way than I am. His normally smooth pate may get a bit of shadow, then a week's worth of stubble before we assault it with the razor again.

And so forth. But this is not terribly shocking in what passes for public in these parts. Rural California cares not for the well-heeled gentleman. No sir. So there's no need.

But the other day, we found ourselves in need to visit a mall. Yes, a mall in a real city. Imagine our horror. Just a day or two after Christmas, we pushed ourselves into a mall and strolled along amongst tightly primped teens, cute couples on second dates, and businessmen on their lunch break.

Smartly dressed in our dingy jeans, yesterday's thermal tops, and Wal-Mart's most bleeding edge $20 fashion footwear, we walked about, shopping for a French press. You'd be surprised how hard they are to find these days, and so we hit store after store. As our hunt wore on, we brushed ladies who were wearing perfume of all things. And men with not just a haircut, but a hair style.

At some point throughout this experience, my discomfort grew to a tangible level, and I realized that I was not of this world. In the span of a mere two months, I had moved from the above-the-bed realm of children and pleasant dreams to the under-the-bed, hiding-in-the-closet realm of monsters. And I announced my discovery to Head Chef.

"We're monsters." I carefully measured my delivery to indicate a statement of fact.

"We are?" he said as one who's just been told an obvious truth but cannot believe he hadn't come upon it himself.

"Oh yes. Don't you feel it?" I asked.

"I do! But I'm experiencing it more like being an alien dropped into the shopping mall. Disturbing." He shuddered for effect, then assumed a stiff-legged alien walk and posture for a few strides. Just enough to make us both laugh through our beards, but not enough to make us stand out any more than we already did.

For myself, I think I'll stick with the monsters. Although Head Chef would look adorable in antennae.

Rock Star (Not The Drink)

2007-12-16T21:22:00.000-08:00

We were innocently milling about in the lobby of the Century Napa Cinedome 8 today, discussing the obscene quantity of soda contained in a 'large' and the dubious merits of hotdogs. We were joined by a friend, and the charming snack counter girls were oblivious to the growing line behind us as they giggled and flirted for our seven dollars. And then the ticket-taker asked if he'd seen us on MTV. "What band do you play with?"

The sight of a group of bearded men is a shock to many, apparently. Bearded men - especially those who work out - must not be allowed to spend time together in polite society. And so those who are confronted with such cognitive dissonance must find some reasonable explanation so as to avoid becoming offended. "Oh, they're in a rock band," they think. So it must be OK. Or, as they have guessed on actual occasions, we're football players, WWF performers, and even The Arm Wrestling Team.

I didn't even know there was one of those. Isn't arm wrestling an individual event?

The Golden Compass was fun, but we bought the book so we could read the good version. On our way from the theater we gave the ticket-taker our best rock star nod and strutted to the bookstore for a good softbound read.

P.S. Yes, we have access to the Internets again.

Moving On Out

2007-08-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been pretty quiet lately, and I hope you haven’t been shocked. Oh, it’s OK, we’re friends, we can talk. I know how easily you’re upset by my silence, and how you start to imagine scenarios. You worry. It may even be a little bit twisted, but I kindof appreciate that, you know? Like, you care enough to be concerned, and that’s actually pretty special.

But no, nothing’s wrong. In fact, aside from the fact that we can’t use our kitchen any more, everything is quite fine.

See, the house is on the market. As in to sell. And we’ve made it positively glisten, but the road to this point was arduous and tiring. And frankly, we just didn’t want to talk too much about it because we weren’t really sure what the goal was, or if we’d still like our goal when we reached it. So yes, we were always working on the house, but we weren’t working on the house. Not like this. It consumed us. It was the only thing we did.

When all you do is make widgets, it’s hard to talk about gadgets, you know? So if you’re working on widgets with secret properties, you don’t say much.

But it’s done now. And now it’s just a matter of keeping it sparklingly clean and not cooking in the kitchen until the right person walks in and just loves it. And then when they do, that’s when the next adventure starts. Because we really are leaving after that person finds this house. And we’re going back to the mainland, to start all over again.

What grand adventures await? Well, we’re not really sure. How fascinating is that? One thing we do know, though, is that Internet access may be rare. So if you thought I was quiet before, just wait a month or two. Because we're going to be turning up the volume on ssssshhhhhhh........

Cue the crickets.

Tagged

2007-06-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, Bother.

Although I’m generally disdainful of blog meme tagging, I’m also completely adoring of GoB. So even though he tagged me, the love fest must go on, and I must comply. To do so, I’m supposed to recount eight random facts about me, then go on to tag eight other people.

I grew up on a farm in rural Oregon with two hundred goats, fifty chickens, thirty five pigeons, three pigs, a cow and her calf, and a dog. Being the eldest boy, it was my job to kill the chickens that escaped repeatedly. Since I could never properly figure out how to aim my BB gun, I did it with my bare hands. (It was also really fun to give the pigs bubble gum. OMG that was some funny shit.)
I want super human powers. I mean, I really really want them. Not unlike how an eleven year-old boy wants them before, during, and after reading a Harry Potter book or X-Men comic, I yearn for extraordinary abilities. Sometimes I want them so I can improve society, sometimes I want them just to show off or to cause a reaction, and sometimes I want them so I can hurt someone. This is how I know I would be a poor candidate for having any.
Bumper stickers that say “Abortion stops a beating heart” really piss me off. What I want to do to the people with them on their cars reinforces my belief that I should have no super-human powers.
If I’m not sore, I feel scrawny and unattractive. Head Chef says I have the most annoying case of body dysmorphia the world has ever known, but I disagree. There are plenty of people with it worse than me. Plus, it keeps me in the gym. Given the choice between a gym habit, chewing my finger nails, or heroin, I think I’ve chosen wisely.
I fully expect a cure for baldness to arrive within the next ten years, and I don’t mean some Propecia-esque thing that sorta/kinda helps. I mean a cure. And I’m already preparing to deal with the ethical dilemma. Hair provides me very little increased likelihood of survival and baldness is a valid and even attractive alternative to hair. Should I take the cure, or take a stand for natural beauty? Only time will tell.
Remodeling our home has been a grueling and long-term effort, and has taken approximately 21 months longer than originally estimated. A good friend of mine attempted the same thing a few years ago and ended up on anti-depressants. I have avoided the same fate by alternately ignoring the construction zone I live in and working on it like a man obsessed. Lately, I’ve been so obsessed that it is testing Head Chef’s patience. But we are making excellent progress and it’s exciting on at least two levels.
For the second time in my life, I’m ready to throw caution to the wind and do something dramatic and rash that has the possibility of great reward coupled with the risk of devastating consequences. I’m either getting older and more able to face risk, or the last time was so traumatic that I’m just not afraid of it any more. Either way, it seems like a win.
I still play World of Warcraft. I might be less inclined to continue, but the Draenei racial was just too good not to roll a new warrior.

Coming up with eight random facts about yourself can be a challenge, but coming up with eight other people to tag is a nightmare. For starters, I don’t actually know eight people. Furthermore, at least one blogger I adore is blogging in secret (figure that out). This makes it too difficult to bother with tagging eight other people.

I suppose if you break the chain in a chain letter you’re supposed to have terrible luck. So if the consequences of not tagging eight other people are so dire that I’m physically or technologically incapable of blogging them, may my silence serve as a warning to others.

Gay Schmomb

2007-06-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Gay Bomb, Gay Schmomb.

I'm tired of hearing about the proposed but abandoned military "gay bomb" that was supposed to turn enemy armies into bands of lawless homosexuals. I'm tired of it because it's been reported before and because that wasn't what it was.

It was a "horny bomb," people, not a gay bomb. It was supposed to make enemy armies so sexually aroused that they would immediately have sex with anything or anyone, thereby effectively rendering them incapable of combat. I think we can imagine how effective that might be.

But everyone's spinning this thing like it was supposed to make people gay. Let's get this straight (so to speak). Being so uncontrollably aroused that you'll fuck a member of the same sex doesn't make you gay. If it did, there'd be a lot fewer heterosexuals out there. In fact, if that were true only 40% of the population would be straight. Gay isn't something that happens to you, or something you do, it's something you are.

No, it was supposed to make them so frickin horny that they'd stop what they were doing and get it on with the nearest human, animal, or object. So yes, there would definitely be some same-sex contact going on. Oh, definitely. And the military masterminds of this plot did acknowledge that the best-case scenario would include enemy troops gettin it on with each other. But that wasn't the only point.

So please, stop crying out about how it's offensive to think that turning people gay would cause armies to collapse. It certainly wouldn't. But making them all drop their guns and fuck definitely would. Military intelligence may be an oxymoron, but they're not actually that stupid.

Ted Kennedy In The Stewpot

2007-06-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

If you're not perfect, how do you tell a friend that they've really let you down? That they've undermined your trust? That they've made you rethink who they are and what they're really about? Do you, even - do you even tell them? Or do you just carry on, pretending nothing's changed.

If you're Ted Kennedy, do you ask a man how his wife died in the car accident?

I guess this is really just about being very disappointed in people not living up to my standards. Two people, specifically, from opposite ends of an ocean. But fear not - neither could be bothered to read this blog, so you're not one of them.

That's not to say that I always live up to my standards, either. No, for all my principles and boisterous pronouncements of ethical concerns, I stray. I am Ted Kennedy, and I am not without sin. I have not killed a man yet, but I'm sure I've hurt one or two.

Since these things move in karmic cycles I will be hurt, too. And others will be hurt as well, and we'll all hold onto our pain and disappointment and let it simmer in a little stewpot. We'll drop in the sacred promises not kept, secrets told to gossips, and political maneuvering by our confidantes, and we'll just let it cook on low. And then we'll hop in. We'll keep the heat down and let the salty brine of our personal disappointments just cook till all that's left is a little crusty reminder at the bottom of our stewpot.

It'll be a mere scab of what it was when it was fresh, and easy to overlook. But it will always be there, reminding us of our dashed hopes and the fact that we dare say nothing because we're Ted Kennedy.

Careful There

2007-06-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

As too many people have already noted, so-called Dr. Holsinger, Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, is a crackpot. He’s a bigoted ideologue who ignores increasingly voluminous scientific evidence that gayness is a naturally occurring phenomenon and then turns around to distort science in order to villainize us. And he’s a nominee for Surgeon General?

Yeah. 'Cause paying attention to medical science is, like, totally not important for the country’s head doctor.

This is so obviously a doomed nomination it makes ya wonder how it could come to be. Well I’ll tell ya how.

Did you see the Democratic party presidential debates? Did you catch how every single one of them, without exception, is progressive on issues of gay citizenship?

So “Dr.” GaysArePervs gets nominated even though he can’t possibly be confirmed. And three different Democratic party contenders are on the committee that will turn him down.

Two plus two still equals four, right?

Bush – or more likely, Rove – is putting Holsinger in front of this committee not because they think he’ll be confirmed, but because they’re counting on Clinton, Obama, et al to go on record saying something pro gay. Something the next bigoted, fear-mongering, middle-class-eliminating, war-drum-beating Republican can use to excite their exhausted, alienated base.

So careful there, Hil and Bar. It’s a setup, and they’re watching you. And we are, too.

Ceiling Fan Attacks Twin

2007-06-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

As a dutiful homo-ner (translation: gay owner of a home), I recognize and perform according to my duty to work on my abode. And so with Head Chef laboring over the power tools, I do the more menial tasks that must be done even though they require a bit more patience and perhaps a little less emotional return for the effort.

And despite the fact that it was he, not I, who operated the power tools, I still found my way to the hospital with a gushing head wound.

See, the ceiling fan attacked me in cold blood. I was innocently patching pukas in the ceiling and the wicked thing reached out and lacerated the back of my head. The impact resonated with a huge “WHAM!” through my head. I fell to the bed I stood on, and heard Head Chef turn off the power tools outside in the garage.

“Are you OK?” he called in. I got up from the bed and put my hand to the back of my head for the blood check. Sure enough, my hand was covered in beautiful red.

“I’m bleeding,” I responded as he came into the house and I went out into the hallway. Although the pain was subsiding quickly, he reported that the cut was an inch or more long, apparently deep, and covered in dust bunnies that had collected on the fan blades since their last cleaning.

So after some convincing, he took me to Kuakini hospital for cleaning, stitches, and a fashionable bandage.

And it was there that it happened again. The admitting nurse asked me my name. She asked me my occupation. She wanted to know if I had any other injury or had fallen to the floor. And she wondered if Head Chef and I were twins.

No? Perhaps brothers? Cousins? Step in-laws thrice removed? I held a cool, damp rag to my head with my right hand, and it was significantly streaked with blood. I looked over at Head Chef and rolled my eyes. Clearly, all bearded, bald men are related.

It was the first time I had ever been irritated by the question. Up to this point over the past nine years, I was fine with it. It even amused me. “Brothers! Ha! More like kissing cousins,” I always wanted to answer. But in this context, the nurse’s question wasn’t amusing at all. It was tedious.

And it was stupid and obvious that we are not brothers. I’m taller, more fair, with narrow shoulders and a gigantic head. I look English/French. Head Chef is shorter, darker, with broad shoulders and a decidedly Czech look to him, and yet again, “Are you brothers?” You should see the family get-togethers.

The bad news was that I needed stitches and a tetanus booster. I braved both, and brother Chef smirked at my discomfort and embarrassment. I was stoic in the face of hypodermics and self-effacing for foolishly standing up into a ceiling fan on high.

My twin (he has teeth and a spinal column) and I left the hospital and returned home to find the fan still spinning. With my head dressed in bandages, I stood there menacing it from the room’s doorway, “spin all you want, but I’ll get you in the end.”

Wistful For Bloodletting

2007-05-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

I have learned from the great and wise GoB that the FDA is upholding the ban on gay men giving blood despite statements against the ban by the Red Cross itself. But unlike he who holds domain over scones, I am not angry. I just miss it.

See, I used to donate blood regularly in college. And I loved it for two reasons: I was deathly afraid of hypodermic needles but not the pencil-lead variety used for blood donation, so it was a sort of personal triumph each time. Plus, I walked out feeling like somebody somewhere might live because I made this minor sacrifice of time and resources.

It helped my mood in a truly unique way. I felt like a little hero, and I smiled for not just no reason at all, but for every reason. I felt generous and benevolent, and yes, even powerful.

I have a fairly rare blood type and great veins so my donation was always met with a peculiarly greedy but grateful welcome. It almost felt as though they might ask to take a little extra just this once. And each time I went in for a bloodletting, I answered the question "have you had sex with a man even once since 1977" truthfully.

I always said, "no." And silently in my mind, I followed my response with "...not yet." So the morning after I finally did go home with a man after a night at a bar, I took stock of what was next. And amongst all the other realizations I had that morning, I knew that my little pleasure of donating blood would be a memory. And I knew I would miss it more than anything else.

Some weeks passed, and I got my customary call from the Red Cross. "Mr. Chef," they started. They always addressed me so politely. "We just wanted to let you know that we're hosting a blood drive in your neighborhood and would appreciate it if you could make another donation because your blood type is so uncommon."

I thanked them and hung up, but I did not go. This happened two more times. And on the fourth call, they seemed puzzled. "Mr. Chef, you had an amazing donation record prior to nineteen ninety (something!), but we haven't seen you at the last three drives in your area. Is there anything that we can do to make it more convenient for you to donate?"

I was hesitant to describe the real reason I'd stopped coming in. "Well, you see, it's just that you don't want my blood any more," I explained.

"Oh, quite the contrary, Mr. Chef, you have an uncommon blood type and we're having a particular shortage of rare bloodtypes in our area," she pleaded. It was clear I had to be direct.

"No, see. You don't want my blood any more because I've had sex with a man since my last donation."

"Oh, I see. Thank you, Mr. Chef. We'll remove you from our call list." She hung up without so much as a goodbye.

I am still HIV negative, and even if I weren’t, the Red Cross says they could tell before my blood went into someone else. Someone who might need it badly.

I still miss giving blood. And I would again if I could. In a heartbeat.

Dial E For Murder

2007-05-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

No, it’s not M. It’s E, baby. E is the true letter to dial for murder.

I work in a security-related field, and as such I have need for encryption in various situations. If you don’t already know what it is, encryption is a term for technologies that scramble information so that it is unreasonably difficult for someone to read unless they are authorized to do so. If someone who isn’t supposed to wants to read encrypted data, they had better have a lot of expertise, a large number of computers, and be in no rush.

Since encryption is so great at protecting information from prying eyes, people in my industry start to use it for the really important things first. When exchanging critical financial data with a client, for example. But then we start using it for less critical things, like placing an order for pizza, and it becomes a slippery slope all the way down. Soon, we’re using types of encryption to prove our emails to Mom really are from Sonny Boy. Like Mom’s checking.

So today I was chatting with the Boulanger, discussing encryption for our instant messaging chats. She didn’t know what it is, the poor dear. So I explained it and its purpose.

Boulanger is the sort of woman who cannot be bothered with the boring realities of certain things, most especially when there is a more entertaining alternative to discuss. No matter that it’s fictional, let’s explore it. So hearing my explanation of encryption and attempting to determine how and why it might be applied to instant message chat, she came upon the best reason ever.

“So you want to chat using encryption because you want to talk about … MURDER,” she stated. Because she is so literate that grammar literally inundates and colors her speech, you could practically hear the capitalization.

Faced with such a dangerous and tantalizing alternative reality, how could I disagree?

Channel Crossing

2007-05-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

Head Chef and I are best when we’re racing toward some distant point. We hop in our canoe - our wa`a - and we paddle toward the same spot on the horizon. That’s when we’re at our best.

Sometimes he steers and sometimes he paddles along with me, putting his lower back into it because he knows where he’s going in his heart. He steers because he sees our destination with something that I don’t. I think he feels it like I feel musical notes. Part vision, like a bird who actually sees magnetic North as a visible spot, and part tactile sensation. Like an ice cube rubbed across your back – shocking at first, but exhilarating and full of contrast that wakes up your senses and leaves you smiling and laughing.

Because I am strong in that way, I paddle. I stroke, stroke, stroke, putting my energy into the water and moving our boat along. And I watch. I watch the water beneath us moving past, noting how our movement across its surface leaves such a small wake. I watch the landmarks on the shore as they approach and move past. I make small adjustments to the depth or strength of each stroke to keep us pointed toward his destination.

When I stop to rest, I am the one who checks the stars for our bearings. Head Chef has no need for such things because our destination is part of him and he trusts that. But I need to observe that we are on course using facts and equations. So I check my data and reassure myself that the route he’s chosen is best. And it is, most times.

So we paddle on, making minor corrections and crossing that next channel. And we’re crossing the water in the same direction. Each does his part and we synchronize our strokes. Together, we’ll get there. That next island, wherever it is. Because this is how we’re best.

Team Spirit

2007-03-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

I don’t know whether it was my upbringing or my genes, but I’ve just never really gotten into team spirit. I can play on a team, participate in a team’s activities, and even earnestly collaborate with my teammates toward a mutually beneficial goal. But ask me to root, root root for the home team, and you can bet I’m going to be yawning in between asking why I should bother.

I remember being in a freshman high school assembly and being taught about how to show my school spirit. Three hundred of us were coaxed and cajoled into screaming at certain cues, and a good number of the kids really seemed to get into it. But a contingent of senior classmen was there, and even despite their smaller numbers, they were louder. Oh noes, we had to beat them, how could we let them beat us??!!

I distinctly remember thinking “but what’s the point,” to myself as I stood in the bleachers with my comrades. Yes, yes, the seniors were louder, but how did it matter? What if they did love our school more, what then? What was the point of school spirit? Did it get me better grades, less homework, or out of school an extra period early? How did my allegiance to something I had no part in choosing for myself benefit me at all? Was I really supposed to be bloated with school pride just because it was the one I went to, and not based on its merits?

This internal dialogue has echoed in my thoughts time and again, and has informed many of my decisions. Religion, military service, and any significant sort of plebian nationalism have all been considered and dismissed. Autonomically doing as god says without personally talking to it, sacrificing my life for an economic system, and accepting the poor choices of my government without comment seem like foolish and dangerous paths to choose. Especially when the merits are dubious, at best.

But faced with these same choices, so many people still seem particularly eager to show their school spirit. Sometimes I feel like I’m still standing next to them in our high school auditorium looking at them, shaking my head, and wondering “why?”

Sad Song

2007-03-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I’m in the mood for a sad song. Sometimes I need the minor key because nothing else interlocks with my reality. My body chemistry. The little aches and pains.

And sometimes, when I hear a song that is sad, I feel like I hear the words. No, not the words - that’s not it. I feel the meaning. The way the hurt collects in the throat and in the heart, constricting them - tingling sour in the corners of the jaw and fluttering in the tummy like nervousness. Nervousness and loss.

Sometimes I’d like to write a sad song too, just so someone would hear it. And maybe the right person would hear it, someone who heard the story I was really telling. They could lie on their bed or sit in their cubicle and let a single tear drop because they realized someone else felt the same hurt.

And we’d never meet and it wouldn’t matter. Because that little truth would rescue us both.

Fond Farewells

2007-02-26T14:50:00.000-08:00

Head Chef’s parents came to visit, and although it was the source of some frustration, it ended very nicely. We returned from Big Island together and had fast food in the terminal while we waited with them for their connecting flight. Then we walked them to the Wiki Wiki shuttle and Head Chef hugged his mother while I shook his stepfather’s hand. Then we switched, and I got a hug from Mama while Head Chef got a handshake from his stepfather. And we stood there for a second.

At this rate, this might be the last time we’d see them again for another few years. I had just had that moment during Christmas with my own family, and it felt like deju vu. Mama Chef started to cry. We had to hurry and get the goodbye over with, or Head Chef would be next. So we waved and parted.

For all the things that can go wrong or did go wrong, I find it easier to forgive it all in those cases when we love each other enough to drop our guard upon parting. To get just a little bit overwhelmed by goodbyes.

I Am A Visionary

2007-02-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

While recognizing that my proposal for how to fix marriage is "absurd," the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance clearly reads my blog and they've presented a watered-down version to the Washington State Legislature. I don't mind my ideas being used for such ends, I just wish they'd given proper attribution.

And you said I wasn't ahead of my time. At this rate, I expect to be jailed for political reasons within eight months.

Explanation For A Friend

2007-01-23T13:45:00.000-08:00

Some months ago my GoB needed an explanation for lipstick in his old jacket pocket. He could not remember where the lipstick came from, and asked for possible sources. I replied. Browsing through his old posts I rediscovered my reply, was amused, and thought I'd share it. It goes a little something like this:

"Your name was Kazimir Svobodnik, and you were on the westbound train in Munich with your lover and fellow spy, the ravishing but deadly Liesl Eberstark. Leisl had just emerged from deep cover as a double-agent with a splinter group of former KGB who had entered into a dangerous game as arms traders. Liesl had stolen blueprints for a heavily-guarded missile technology and a kilo of weapons-grade isotopes, which she now kept inside her makeup case under her seat.

Suddenly, shots were fired in the car behind yours. Without looking back, you and Leisl lunged from your seats and ran for the next car, pulling your weapons from inside your dress jackets.

As you burst through the doors to the next car, a startled woman screamed, and then began to panic when she saw the weapons you both held. Having no time to quiet the innocent, Leisl gracefully shot the woman and her two companions in the forehead, silencing them and leaving the two of you alone in the train car.

Croutched behind the door listening for your pursuers, you and Leisl locked eyes. You'd been here before, and she was a powerful ally. Moments like these made you love her ever more powerfully. You needed her flesh, right then and there, and she mocked you with her eyes when she spied the erection in your heavy woolen trousers.

'Oh, darling,' she whispered. And that was all. She looked up to the window in the door as a sound came from the previous train car, and your eyes followed the direction of the sound, as well.

Suddenly you felt a mist in your face, and looked to see Leisl screwing the fake bottom back into her lipstick.

'I'll miss you, Kaz,' she whispered.

At once, the horror of your situation was apparent. Leisl had obtained the banned Soviet memory-eradication spray, and had used it on you. She was going to keep the isotopes for herself. You had only seconds, and your consciousness was fading already. There was no time for your anger or betrayal.

'I love you, Leisl. For now,' you muttered, and watched as she carelessly tipped the lipstick container off her fingertips and into your jacket pocket. She gave you a regretful look, stood, and ran through to the next car. You watched her, knowing that as your consciousness left you, so did your identity.

The next thing you knew, you were a homosexual computer programmer living in San Francisco."

Takedown

2007-01-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

We were late for a lunch meeting so we were hurriedly walking to the restaurant through the historic part of downtown Honolulu. On our left we passed the Kawaiaha`o Church and a Japanese wedding party descending down its steps.

We rushed down the empty sidewalk, mindlessly navigating around a bus stop or other obstacle and talking about Churches and my buddies’ marriage-minded girlfriends. As we did, we glanced over our shoulders periodically to watch the bride bask at the top of the stairs like Makapu`u Lighthouse shining amongst a night of dark Japanese suits.

We approached two elderly women standing on the edge of the sidewalk waiting to cross, but they stood still and were well out of our path. I glanced over to the Church again as we talked about its popularity with the Japanese.

And then I was tested.

The more elderly of the two women was once a powerful but evil master of sciences and Kung Fu, and she used these tools to achieve her sinister ends. Using complex calculations based on her vast knowledge of physics and informed by her studies of Cheetah style martial arts, she timed her attack perfectly. While my head was turned to see the bride giggle and sway, Auntie launched herself into my path in an attempt to undo me for the last time.

But devious Auntie Cheetah was no match for my years of training at Shaolin Locomotive Monastery.

I never saw her coming and I barreled into her like a steam engine hits a cow. All I knew was that I had struck something with my chest that shouldn’t ought to have been there. I came to an abrupt halt, but Auntie absorbed my kinetic energy and began to crumple downward and toward the Church in a desperately pleading sort of slow-mo. Foolish mortal. As though the Church could save her now.

I stood in shock, almost completely unable to react, as my 70 year old nemesis collapsed. My friends, who had seen her leap at me but had no time to warn me, tried to slow her fall, but it was no use. No mere Grandma can stand after being struck by a man in Locomotive Stance.

We helped her up from the concrete and immediately began to abase ourselves. Auntie’s sidewalk companion yelled accusations of premeditated assault and attempted foul play. Finally, after everyone was confirmed uninjured and we promised for the fourteenth time that it was an accident, we were allowed to leave.

But I’m keeping my eye out for Grandma. She may be frail, but she is wise, vengeful, and she has powerful allies. Thank goodness for Locomotive Stance.

Shame On Me

2006-10-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

The New Jersey ruling came down on Wednesday, and as predictably as a goofy, snorting laugh from Chrissy on Three’s Company, the Republican Party is back at the pulpit, stumping on the evils of homosexuality and gay marriage. And why not? They can't run candidates on the economy, or war, or terrorism, or domestic policy, or healthcare, or anything else you can mention. They've got nothing but bigotry left in their bag of tricks.

The only question is will their target audience fall for the bait, or have they learned enough to know better?

The Republican Party has cynically played their conservative constituency for fools, and done so quite successfully now for years. But lately it seems they’ve had a change of heart. Their cynicism has been exposed on television, in print, and in public appearances, they’ve backed off the bigoted message the Christians want to hear, and they've been shown to be hypocrites on the issues that matter to religious fascists most. As a result even the most venomous, hateful members of the religious right have started to withdraw support.

But will those same Christians who’ve seen their issues fall gradually by the wayside come back into step if the Party reverses course? Surely not all Christians are stupid, and surely they can see they’re being played for fools a second time.

George W. Bush once said, “Fool me once, shame on you… shame on you. Fulma – you can’t get fooled again.” But it seems clear that he and his party’s leadership don’t believe that. Amidst all the lies, and despite the fact that the Christians they so disingenuously pander to have called their bluff, they’re back at it.

It’s entirely possible that the foolishness they’re counting on in their constituency is matched in volume by their own. The political climate has changed and Americans and Christian bigots alike are savvy to Bush politics and strategies.

The saying Mr. Bush so deftly attempted to quote is, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” So will the bigots fall for it twice? Only after the elections will we know where the shame lies.

Being Greeted

2006-10-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

When I walked into the office for the first time the space was womb-dark and smelled like warm food. Halloween decorations were liberally strewn across the ceiling and draped over unmanned, makeshift computer workstations. I stood there for a moment, and was quickly met by my friends who are my new employers. They apologized about the mess, and I thought to myself that it reminded me of a familiar place.

We walked together through a doorway into a bright room where I was noisily greeted by the owner and the entire staff of eight or so people. They all cheered at once, as though it were a surprise party. Someone even applauded. And I was so confused by this reaction that I thought I had just happened to walk in at the precise moment they began celebrating something for one of their existing staff. But they were looking at me.

“Who?” I asked with absolute sincerity.

“You!” they said, and laughed.

“Oh, me?” I replied. I was so surprised by this atmosphere – this unreserved, boisterous welcome – that I was still only partially capable of comprehending it.

You see, I received polite, professional, but concerned greetings when I joined my current job. People delicately made small talk one at a time and used carefully chosen words in unexpressive tones portending of danger.

It was dramatically unlike the local kine version of an Olive Garden commercial I had just walked into.

Now that I’ve had it both ways, I think maybe you can tell a lot about a place by the way people greet you. And I’m going to watch for that, and choose carefully. Life is too short. I don't want to spend it where people aren’t happy enough to be excited to share.

Quitting Day

2006-10-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

I almost didn’t quit today.

I didn’t get the offer letter I was expecting over the weekend, and so I was prepared not to quit. But I had some business to do, and when I returned to my desk, it was waiting there. The offer. Huzzah!

It was a brief apologetic email and a series of documents that, to be honest, were practically irrelevant. My decision had been made months earlier. But I read them anyway, and they didn’t ask for my first born. So the deal was done. Now all I had to do was quit.

But I had no time for quitting. I had things that needed to be done, and then suddenly my office’s managing partner (picture your small company’s President or CEO) asked my manager and me to lunch. There was no time to quit before lunch; it would simply have to wait.

We went to a wonderful restaurant, but there was a heart audibly beating beneath the floorboards. I knew I had something to say, but another manager had come along and so even though the two men I needed to quit with were there, there was this obstacle. The obstacle told stories and we laughed, but I did not laugh inside. Only my veneer laughed.

And then the phone rang. It was a knowing ring. It started as a vibration in my pocket that was so determined it would not be ignored that it finally resorted to becoming audible. And just as knowing as the ring was, so too was the departmental partner on the other end of the line. He started with his clever salesman’s voice, “So, hehe, I’ve been hearing some rumors, hehe, and I wanted to find out from the, hehe – you know – the horses mouth.”

How could he know!? How could have cracked into my secret quitting world? But right he was. And so he was the first to hear me quit. And quit I did. Firmly, assuredly. Grateful for his kind words and attempts to dissuade me, but confident of my decision and its correctitude.

And then I sat back down and finished lunch. Chinese. Delicious.

But no sooner did I step back into the office than my engagement partner called. He too had broken the code. And he too was flattering and attempted to dissuade me, but he was also bizarrely worried that I had quit over him. Ummm… no.

I was shaken. I had been ambushed twice by my own resignation and I had not even officially given it! The adrenal roller coaster had been quite a ride up to this point.

Clearly, the gig was up, and it was time to write my letter and hand it to my manager. I edited something simple and decent from a website containing samples, and he was considerate but disappointed. My office’s managing partner, too, was disappointed and curious and so I tried to be honest and helpful. I truly felt bad for the inconvenience of leaving them right before busy season.

But someone… she had to pay for my day. My friend the audit manager had clearly played a part in the day’s drama. But she was weak. When I confronted her she broke down quickly and admitted that she had tricked my new employers into telling her my plans. She then ratted on me to her partner, who told my partners, who in turn called me and made my day very very interesting.

Very interesting indeed. What a day of quitting. What exciting new beginnings.

The Watcher Leaves

2006-09-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

You are being watched.

Oh, yes you are.

By me.

You are hurriedly putting your bags through the agricultural quarantine scanner at the airport, and you just look like a guy from San Francisco. Like a guy I might even know. But you are trying to dress like you’ve been to Hawai`i. And naturally, because you are who you are – you there, with your appealing, stocky build and your good hair and short beard – you have done a good job. I’d almost think that you were local by your choice of aloha shirt. But of course you’re not.

You nod and smile. You know.

And you, with your plucked eyebrows - I know you do drag when you’re not in that uniform. The way you pull the curtain back using only two fingers and never, ever using your pinky. I know. And the rest of you, with the proper gait but just a bit too much lift in your step. I can recognize which one of you said, “Welcome aboard United flight 72 to San Francisco,” without even hearing you speak in person. And, sir, when you do speak to someone face to face, you still sound like Bea Arthur doing voice over for a Discovery Channel special.

Such a shame you couldn’t get the video system running properly. The movie was cute.

I don’t mind watching you. The guy who reads while biting his tongue. The tongue that just hangs from between his teeth, thoughtlessly resting between his lips. Or the guy who gets a nicotine fit and has to dip to calm his nerves.

I even enjoy it. But I’d give it all up to spend the day at home, play the game, work in the yard, and go to bed together tonight. I won’t do those things for a month, and I’m not happy about it, but it’ll be OK, and I’ll do those things again soon.

Turning Around

2006-09-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

That fateful night in the hot tub, Head Chef’s eyes blinked and glistened with sadness stemming from recent losses and an older yearning I had seen many times before. He pined for Hawai`i and for the life he’d led when he lived here as a younger man, and he foresaw his unhappinesses resolved if only he could get back to this physical place.

I loved him as much then as I do today, so I said yes. After six some-odd years, I abandoned my well-practiced rejection and said, simply, “OK.” And we moved. What has followed has been heartache, harder work than I have ever known, isolation, and too few of the rewards he believed in.

And he believed in so many inevitable rewards. More relaxed work lives, bounteous gardens, and endless aloha were ours for the price of being here. Everything would be fine because we were here.

Since I had committed myself to him and this dream, I took up the faith along with him and prayed on my mat four times per day and chanted each evening as I clutched my beads. Work lives, gardens, aloha. Work lives, gardens, aloha.

But that’s the problem with faith. Belief doesn’t make it so. Trust doesn’t make truth. And while not necessarily Jones Town, this is not The Promised Land, either. Not my Promised Land, and sadly, not even his.

It’s time to go. I’ve been away from Home for too long. I miss It.

Databases Of Divinity

2006-08-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Once every sixth Sunday or so, door-to-door salespeople in dresses and ties canvas my neighborhood. Always the same people, they park two cars at the other end of our dead-end street and walk the block or two to my end. The women take the makai side of the street and the men take the mauka side. They knock on each door and politely announce themselves “hello?” over locked gates.

I’m pretty confident they’re selling God. But I’m not sure, because they have never once stopped at my home. Not once.

They were on the street yesterday as I was washing the car. My arms were soapy to the elbow and my shorts were wet in several places and I was getting a little achy from all the scrubbing. And after stopping at every one of my neighbors’ homes, they simply nodded as they walked passed me.

I nodded in return.

While it’s true that I’m not in the God market at this time and I’m not really a fan of salespeople who knock at my door, I still wonder how it is that they’ve determined I am not the kind of customer they’re looking for.

As best I can figure, the makers of God and God related products must be watching demographics, monitoring their marketing efforts, and keeping precise records. They know your purchasing history and they take referrals from other customers. They buy mailing lists from the Republican party. They know whether your soul is worthy of saving – or not – based on their records and referrals. And then before each series of sales calls, the merchandisers send out a comprehensive list. Denominations, notable sins, tithing habits, and of course a list of households they don’t want to do business with.

Accurate though it may be, our home ended up on their list of the unredeemable. I just don't know how. I figure a neighbor member of their church saw us kissing on the front step and it was all over at that point. But I still kinda wish they’d come to the door just once.

Because by the time Head Chef and I were done, they'd be tripping over themselves to get off the property. And the congregation's marketing database would recount terror so unholy there would be wailing in the pews.

What I Did On My Bi-Annual Vacation

2006-08-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

What I did on my bi-annual vacation
By The Pastry Chef

This biennium, Head Chef and I went to Russian River to the little town of Guerneville to participate in Lazy Bear Weekend, and it was fun. We shared a house with a friend I’d only met once before, and he was really nice. And his friends who shared the house with us were super guys, and Head Chef and I really liked them a lot.

OK, OK, this isn’t a back-to-school essay, but seriously, I kinda feel that way about the trip. It was wonderful and I did make – or at least better secure – three to six people whom I’ll call friends. In fact, I’ll even call them.

But now that it’s passed, it’s almost like a back-to-school essay. Or someone else’s memory. Like a story someone told so vividly that it’s as though I were there myself. And of course, I was, but I already feel distant from the experience.

I think Lazy Bear was better this year than it was in 2003. I spent a lot more time sober, and a lot more time resting and eating, and I think that these things are good. I also spent a moderate amount of time indulging in excess. As I am an advocate of excess in moderation, I approve of my behavior.

Others were not so lucky. Head Chef got a case of perhaps-almost-alcohol-poisoning and fell down went boom on his little head. While the physical wounds to his ear and brow have healed, the night stand he bludgeoned with his skull will doubtlessly carry emotional scars for years. I don’t know where furniture seeks therapy, but I hope it gets the best care available.

And so now I have returned to my workaday work each day, and I’m already looking forward to 2008. Perhaps that year I will spend more quality time with the friends I had before I arrived, for that is my only regret.

Well, not my only regret. Try as I might, I couldn’t snap my fingers to summon everyone I love to that one place at that particular time.

But for that, I need to apply for additional super human powers.

See The World

2006-07-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

There are times when I am so blank that my senses change. My skin feels like it’s been dipped in ice for a nanosecond. And I can see in my peripheral vision the striations in the fabric that holds the universe together. Like a shirt too-tightly stretched across an ample chest, with the feeble but brave button – my focus – the only thing keeping the whole thing from bursting out.

Universe bursting out all over. Holsteins, atoms, skyscrapers, butterflies, polyquaternium-11, pomeranians, and yes, even ample chests. All over. Chaos and disarray and entropy just the way it wants to be. All in an instant, if I blink and lose my focus.

When my brother was a young boy, we all sat to eat at the dinner table one particular night. But like any other, we talked about everything and there were no forbidden gross-out topics. Except bell peppers. Those were strictly taboo.

He was then as he is now, but shorter, well cushioned by a short-lived layer of baby fat, and blonde as snow. He sat on two phone books to adjust his height upward toward the table. And at some point, he announced that he could make the world fuzzy. Puzzled and curious we asked him what he meant, and so he showed us. And as we looked on, he crossed his eyes.

My parents laughed politely and explained that crossing his eyes didn’t make the world fuzzy, it just made it appear fuzzy to him. I don’t know if he understood then, but of course the story is laughable now.

Funny that we’re all so sure that the world isn’t fuzzy. Or that something simple and fragile isn’t holding the whole thing together.

Dinner and an Introspection

2006-07-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

We hurriedly had Grillardin over for dinner last night. We barbecued and watched "Defending Your Life" with Albert Brooks.

Grillardin hates Albert Brooks. She just hates him. As we watched the film she was so overcome by her hatred that she couldn't bring herself to comprehend what Meryl Streep could see in him. Or how just maybe there were some valid questions and opportunity for self-examination buried in there.

I always watch that film and think about the machinery it puts upon The Universe. The bureaucracy, and how perfect it would be, in that dark ironic-Jewish-humor sort of way.

But even more, I wonder if I would go forward, or return. I have not lived a life without fear. But I think about the moments of courage I've shown in my life, too, and I think that I'm not without a defense. And I think that, as the court went over my life, they might want to review nine days. Or maybe even more. But perhaps less.

I also think about Head Chef, Friturier, Grillardin, Boulanger, and my other friends such as yourself, and I think about your courage and wisdom. And I think that it would be a shame to return when you moved onward. But if I need to face my fear, then there's work to be done and I'll just need to pull up my bootstraps and get moving.

Decisions

2006-07-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

When I am faced with a difficult decision and I don’t know what to do, I go through my own sort of coping mechanisms in a specific order. It’s like the grieving process, but most likely without any precipitating, concurrent, or resultant deaths. Usually.

Remember, this is an important choice I’m preparing to make, so the stakes are theoretically high. As a result, the first thing I do is nothing at all. I seize up. At this first, critical stage of the decision making process, I try to put it out of my mind. I work in the yard, breezily talk about social affairs, and play a video game. Anything to not be distracted by this important matter. And most important of all, I take no action.

Then, when the pressure gauge is starting to read into the red zone, I agonize. I agonize over my choices and most especially the minutiae. How will this affect my balding pattern, who will pick up the dog droppings, and what will the impact be upon the Uncle whom I haven’t seen in 15 years. I also formulate answers to these questions in the form of worst-case scenarios. As an example, my answers to the above might simply be Nuclear Holocaust, Hitler, and Nuclear Holocaust.

Having determined that the worst possible outcome is also the most likely outcome, I decide not to bring about the end of the world by facilitating Hitler’s Nuclear Holocaust and I seek support for my choice. I nervously present my dilemma to everyone who will listen, attempting to seem undecided while passively portraying the nature of the frighteningly likely Nuclear Holocaust. If they agree with me, I am relieved. I have made the right choice and averted certain Nuclear Holocaust. If, however, they rudely insist on not seeing through my façade of objectivity and seem to think Nuclear Holocaust is only remotely likely, I am dismayed.

At this point I have either decided not to perpetrate the Nuclear Holocaust and my cycle of pain is over, or I am required to agonize some more. If the Holocaust remains on my plate, I grow a few more grey hairs in my beard and fret endlessly until I finally come to a choice. This could take a while.

But once my mind is made up, don’t bother to attempt to dissuade me. You had your chance, Mr. Oh-No-The-World-Probably-Won't-Really-End. No, you missed your chance, and I didn’t suffer over the decision for so long just to start again. My mind is made up, and my course is set. Stand aside, for no one shall impede me.

Unless they present me with a difficult choice.

Islands of Sun

2006-06-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

This Sunday was much like the previous, but sunnier. I was never cold in my short sleeves and I was warmed by friends I’d known for between 15 years and 20 minutes.

San Francisco is a lot like Honolulu in more ways than one would think. Pay no mind to the allegations that San Francisco is attached to some larger body of land, it is an island. It’s true, even if you insist it is an island of its own choosing. And just as any place that is disconnected from the larger world around it, San Francisco is unique. Its geology, architecture, politics, art, history, and current residents reflect and perpetuate its uniqueness.

Like islands are, it’s dirty, too. But all the dirt and grit doesn’t really bother me, as there’s so much other beauty.

On the way up the first significant slope to the God of Biscuit’s house, we passed another house of god where an authentic supposed miracle occurred. But I would never have noticed the church itself, because I was always caught up in the brilliant Christmas-red swaths of fabric looping and draping from the limbs of the giant tree out front.

So sayeth the GoB, a silhouetted image of the virgin Mary appeared in a weathered sign at the little Catholic house. We mused that Mary’s silhouette looked a lot like the shadowy image of the Emperor of the Galactic Trade Federation. And we noted with mock suspicion that we’ve never seen them together... I’m not saying they’re the same person, but of course, no one’s saying they’re not, either.

We drove right past the site of the "miracle" for our current version of church: Beer bust with the bears. Not really bears ourselves, we still find the easiest company with the hirsute jolly men. I nursed a beer or two while they indulged, smooched, and groped. I held hands with men so familiar that I could call them family, and laughed louder than was probably even appropriate. I was assaulted by cigar smoke from one side and pakalolo from another and rather than cringe or crave, I just basked in it all.

I left feeling full. Reinvigorated. Connected.

Head Chef will join me for more of this next weekend, and I cannot wait. The island of San Francisco is holding its gay pride celebration then, and it sounds like the Pink Saturday block party is the biggest attraction of all.

The forecast is for sun. I’m going to hold my Chef’s hand amidst thousands of other island people and just bask and bask.

Straight Pride

2006-06-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

It’s gay pride month all over the nation, and that means controversy. Probably this year more than many others, gay pride is disgusting, offensive, and a threat to children and the American way of life.

So what I want to ask is this: Why not do something about it? Show your side! Have a Straight Pride Parade!

I have said for years that heterosexuals should get their own parade, too. Despite everything they say in the media, there’s nothing shameful about gettin it on with a member of the opposite sex. You were born to love the way you do, and you should be proud of your opposite-sex attraction. So have a parade!

Gay pride parades are a little shocking to suburban dads and church ladies, and I understand why. For one, the gayness gets on their nerves. Boys kissing boys like they mean it – well, that’s not something they see on tv. But then heap upon that the topless women, the nearly bottomless boys, the dancing, the displays of bizarre fetishism, and the politicians, and it’s all just too much for even God to witness.

So I say have a straight pride parade. Set up a nonprofit, get sponsors, file for a license, and get those volunteers working. We need floats for soccer moms, the PTA, the Southern Baptists, and Republican gubernatorial candidates.

Sound boring? Well, of course it would be. There’s nothing there to shock you. That’s why, in order for the straight pride parade to be a success, you’d have to welcome all interested groups from all facets of the heterosexual spectrum.

Bring in the shock value.

Bring in the swingers, the National Order of The Dominatrix, furries, bondage fetishists, and a huge float of a woman’s foot with two dozen guys licking it. The Polyamory Society could enter a huge free love exhibition on wheels, and just think how much the children would love to see that. Strip clubs could have floats with scantily clad dancers on poles, and the local sex workers union could hand out flyers on why prostitution should be decriminalized.

Now that’s a parade I would go to. All straight, all the time, and plenty to see.

But that’s why there’s no straight pride parade. If they held a straight pride parade, it would be too boring to see, or too titillating not to, and nobody who’d organize one wants either of those. Because each of us is just as obsessed with strange sex as the next demographic, and straight pride parades would show that once and for all. They’d show how multifaceted heterosexual sexuality is, and that’s not good for the party line.

Even if it might be good for humanity.

Saying Too Little

2006-06-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

Normally, I say too much.

Sometimes at work I become a running narrative of my work. I don’t know why, I just find myself so incredulous that I feel compelled to share. Or, at least, I’m too friendly and not straight.

But how dare I reduce this to a gay stereotype? Probably the same way anyone else would, but shouldn’t I be better than that? Maybe not. Lately, I’ve been enjoying stereotypes.

Just an hour ago, the client stepped in to ask what we were listening to on our headphones. I was listening to Raiatea Helm, a Hawai`ian beauty with incredible talent and skill. And the client immediately thought he knew what my co-worker was listening to based on his preconception of what/who my co-worker is.

I work with a Good Mormon Boy out here in the Valley of Silicon, and he is so very, excruciatingly Mormon. I just love how he doesn’t drink alcohol, has a fierce work ethic, and blindly obeys. How could you not love that? Really?

But I also love how GMB jokes about having an open relationship with his wife. How hilarious, stereotype-busting, and progressive of him! How obviously absurd - or not - and sexually subversive he is! How brazenly he doth simultaneously violate his stereotype and reinforce it! To him, I say, “You are the Mormon we need, with your compliance and sly nod to rebelliousness.”

I would like to slyly nod to rebelliousness, too, but I am not doing it. I, who say too much, am staying mum about certain things like wives. And where I hung out during the weekend…

And so I wonder which stereotypes I’m adhering to, here. Am I suddenly the eidos of mid-thirties professional closet cases? Or am I failing my stereotype as the shows-no-shame-gay-man with a sense of self? Is it shame, a lost opportunity, or just discretion?

I wonder if I am just not saying too much, or if this time I’m saying too little.

Dante's Business Trip

2006-05-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

Like last year, I am being shipped off again to work the summer far away from home. It’s something I am loath to do, and very resistant to.

And I have found that although most people seem to agree that business travel is not something they’re excited about, I am of an apparently small minority who would prefer none at all, regardless of the destination. In mentioning the locales to which I may be sent, I have had “Oooh!” and “Awesome!” responses when all I can think of is how disruptive the travel is. How it keeps me away from a routine that is important to me and a man who is even more so.

Still, this year’s options are admittedly more favorable than last year’s.

Utah was smoggy, hot, and a cultural desert. I spent nearly two months in a concrete warehouse by day and a concrete hotel by night. It was odd to think of Utah Valley as the Promised Land for God’s Chosen People. It made me wonder what those people had done wrong to have that be their reward. That question remains unanswered, but my guess is that it’s their reward for being interminably dull.

This year, I may find myself in another desert, but not the cultural kind. Oregon and California are high on the list of probable destinations, and I’m relieved.

So although this sort of extended trip away from home is a Danteian nightmare for me, it is more palatable than it has been in the past. Rather than being sent to the Seventh Circle’s inner ring, for example, I’m merely headed for the Second or Third Circle. It seems reasonable to me, as I am not violent, but I love food, drink, and men. So I’m not thrilled with it, but at least it makes sense.

Still, who wouldn’t rather spend a summer in even the first sphere of Paradiso?

Today's Choices

2006-05-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

It’s always been my feeling that every day we make all our decisions all over again. Decisions we don’t even consciously consider, but that we could make in a different way. By not changing our minds, we choose to continue our current path.

Such is life. I continue to choose not to quit my job, leave my beloved Head Chef, or go on a murderous rampage. I may consider all or none of these things consciously every single day, but the choice is made by not choosing to change course.

And so it is with being here in Hawai`i. Some days, I consciously reconsider the choice I made to come here, and carefully weigh the possibility of changing my mind. Because living in Paradise is not without its taxes.

By taxes I simply mean those tradeoffs that are made to be here. The well-run city in exchange for the good weather. The friends I could see daily in exchange for the good weather. The cushy job I had, the big beautiful old house, the crunchy culture and the ability to travel in exchange for the good weather.

And I do kid, of course. Hawai`i is magical in so many ways, and good weather is only a part of it. Beaches, lively beach towns, and Waikiki at night are glorious. And there are other things, too. Hula is extraordinary and beautiful. Hawaiian music doesn’t sound as good anywhere else. I eat sushi now, and it was caught that same day. I’ve never grown houseplants in my yard and watched them mature into trees before. And a new batch of eager untanned faces ready for fun shows up every week just ready to make new friends.

But sometimes these gains are small consolation for the losses I had to incur to access them.

When I think about these trade-offs, or I’m putting in another 60-hour work week and feel ready to officially regret my choice to live here, my thoughts settle on recurring themes. Am I ready to admit to myself and to those who said I shouldn’t move that I made a mistake? Am I just being impatient, or should I stick it out and work to make it better?

So far, I have chosen to stay - to work toward making this experiment a success. To not run from the uncomfortable parts of this move because even though it’s now two years in the past, it’s still rather fresh. I am not ready to accept that this was a mistake.

Yes, yes, emphatically YES I miss home. Nothing is more telling than the fact that it is still home to me, and not this string of lovely warm islands. But I am not ready to give up, and I am hopeful that this will be home some day if I am just patient and diligent.

Laughing While Bathing

2006-03-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

This morning as he trimmed his beard in the shower, Head Chef buckled forward just a bit and made a loud, “Oh!” sound. Razor in hand with his back to me, I couldn’t tell if he’d cut himself, had an epiphany, or been punched in the stomach.

When I realized that I had not punched him and no one else was there, I narrowed the options to cutting or epiphany.

“Are you OK?” I asked. He started to chuckle.

“Oh, my god, yes. I just remembered that I talked to my mother yesterday,” he said with a smile in his voice.

I didn’t know why his sudden remembrance of a conversation with his mother would cause such a confusing pain-like sound. From my perspective, she's just a wonderful in-law. About as good as one could hope for, certainly. And she says some funny, funny things. When she walks around something, she’s walking the parameter, not the perimeter. She warshes her dishes in the zinc. Other people are specific, but she’s very Pacific. And, according to her, the native Australians are Aberneeshuns.

“I was talking to Mom,” he continued, “and … oh, I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I said - Oh, I remember now, we were talking about the new cabinets, and the holes at the top that we have to fill before we can cover them – and I said that they were ‘pukas’ without even thinking about it.”

A puka, in local parlance, is a hole. Any sort of hole – in a boat, in the ground, in the top of a cabinet.

“And so,” he said, “she starts giving me crap about saying ‘puka’ ‘cause she doesn’t know what it is. So when I told her, she’s all, ‘Oh, what, so you’re so local you’re speaking Chicken now?’”

Standing there in the shower, we both burst into laughter. Through his own laughs and over mine, he exclaimed, “So I said, ‘Mom! It’s not Chicken! It’s Pidgin!’” And we laughed some more.

Hell

2006-03-13T13:52:00.000-08:00

When I came to work today I must have gotten off the elevator at Hell instead of floor 21.

In this conservative and stuffy financial office, there are children. Two, I believe, though it's hard to tell since they move so quickly and make so much noise relative to their size. They are running, screaming, and throwing things.

I was on the phone with a client, and one of them crash-landed itself noisily under my desk. Trying very hard to focus on what the person on the other end of the line was saying, I plugged my finger into my other ear and trained my brain on his words. But the shrieks of evil laughter and glee from under my desk would not be ignored. Another adult - perhaps the one responsible for delivering these little devils to our quiet workplace - appeared behind me pleading "come out, he's on the phone" in hushed tones. She had to say it more than twice. I never looked at her, for I could not have looked kindly.

This is not my work. It looks like work, but it's been inhabited by child-sized demons and we do not have those at my work. They would exist in Hell, but not here.

I think I may get my things and go back to the elevator.

The Ponytail Club

2006-02-21T14:37:00.000-08:00

So there's this club, see. It's the Ponytail Club. And everyone in the Ponytail Club wears a ponytail and believes firmly that the ponytail is the superior hair style. It is their belief that all other hairstyles - or indeed, head adornment - are inferior to the ponytail.

They meet periodically to admire one another's spectacular ponytails, and to hold sessions wherein they extoll the virtues of the ponytail to one another. They write letters to fashion magazines and they shun those who do not share their chosen passion for the ponytail.

But they save their visciousness for bald people. They believe that bald people secretly shave their heads in an effort to ruin ponytails forever. They think that bald people would be happier if they'd just try to grow a ponytail, or wear a wig.

And some bald people do try. But most of them are just kinda sad. They have a comb-over, or an obvious Hair Club number that doesn't really look like real hair.

But some bald people wear their smooth scalps as proudly as Ponytail Club members wear their chosen hairstyle. And that infuriates the Ponytail Club. They issue press releases, have talking points, and even promote their own hair club products. But none of it has helped bald people who just can't grow a ponytail.

In the end, it's kinda sad when you think that people who chose to be in the Ponytail Club would persecute people who are bald and just can't help it.

(I first posted this to a contentious thread at The Language Guy. I just liked it enough to share)

Shattered Fantasy

2006-02-03T19:41:00.000-08:00

Head Chef and I play a video game called World of Warcraft, and it is a lot of fun. We play online simultaneously with hundreds and even thousands of other players from across North America and Australia, helping each other complete difficult tasks, defeat monster(ous) foes, and earn powerful weapons and abilities.

It’s all very exciting, time-consuming, and carefully designed to be as addicting as possible. At that, it’s very successful.

But recently, a spectre has appeared in game that crosses into the real world.

Head Chef and I have always appreciated the fact that Blizzard, the company that publishes World of Warcraft, has a firm policy against using the word “gay” in an insulting or derogatory manner in the game. Occasionally, we’ve actually reported other players who were abusive to gays, and it was nice to know that Blizzard was protecting us so we could play free of harassment.

But lately, Blizzard’s had a change of heart. A new policy was recently introduced after a woman announced in the game that her guild – a group of other players that are allied with one another – was looking for more members. The guild was “LGBT friendly.” Someone complained, and the woman was issued a warning by Blizzard. ‘You can’t say LGBT in game’ they said, in essence.

What followed was uproar. After a protracted silence, Blizzard made their policy more clear. Mention of sensitive topics, they said, was forbidden in game chat. Since gays and lesbians are a sensitive topic, they, like Christianity and Neoconservatism, were a prohibited topic.

But Blizzard was still vague enough in their description of the new policy to leave a lot of people wondering. ‘So is it OK to talk about heterosexuality, wives, or marriages,’ people have wondered. The verdict is still not in.

But something has happened – or at least is alleged to have happened – that may turn the question on its head. A player asked a Game Master if his two friends – a heterosexual couple that both play female characters – could have a marriage ceremony in the game. The answer was no. And more troubling still was that the answer was no because they were both playing female characters. The wedding, however, would be fine if they were playing opposite-sex characters.

This is a significant disappointment. If this account is true, it means that players are forbidden from creating the appearance that they are homosexual, or creating characters that they portray as homosexual for fear of being reported, warned, or even permanently banned from the game. But this rule does not apply to heterosexual players or players who play characters they portray as heterosexual.

Blizzard is based in California, and California law prohibits businesses from discriminating against gays and lesbians. Already, there is talk of letters from lawyers and articles in mainstream gay press.

Ostensibly, Blizzard is to doing this to maintain the purity of the fantasy fiction they’ve created in the World of Warcraft. But while Blizzard isn’t asking heterosexuals to portray themselves as anyone other than who they are in the World, they’ve seemingly instituted a new requirement that LGBT people must.

And that requirement utterly obliterates the fantasy.

On Keeping Cars

2006-01-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine likes to talk about cars, and about the commitment we’re making when we obtain them. He’s probably not the first to put vehicles in this perspective, but recently he's been having some automotive difficulties and he's been philosophical about it.

For example, he says, renting a car – a convertible, say – is very fun. You can pick out the coolest model at the agency that day, and for a very small fee, you can use it all weekend. Take it around, show it off to your friends and laugh about how you wish you could afford one like that in real life. You can speed down a deserted highway with the top down, steering with your knees and your hands up in the air, screaming at the top of your lungs. You gun the engine at stop lights and pull into parking spaces just a little too fast.

Because there’s no commitment. You’re not particularly careful when you drive it because it’s not yours. You make sure you leave it almost as clean as when you got it, and you turn it in at the end of the weekend. But you don’t even have to look back as you leave the lot.

If you lease a car, though, you can get most of the benefits of renting, but with some trade-offs in terms of obligation. You can still afford a car much more exciting than your resources would normally allow, but there are some upkeep requirements. Oil must be changed and you have to wash it and generally keep it in good working order. If it breaks down, most problems are not going to be your responsibility depending on the lease agreement, but you do have to keep it running well.

And when the lease agreement is up, you can walk away like nothing ever happened. But you’ve had time to develop some feelings for the car – maybe you’ll miss the way it drove, or be glad to be rid of that window that never properly sealed. It wasn’t just a car, it was your car, albeit for just a short while. And the next person to drive it will feel how you wore it in.

When we buy a car, he cautioned me, we take full ownership responsibility. Yes, yes, it’s wonderful to drive it off the lot and hold that steering wheel in your hands and know that this car - this car - is yours and no one else’s. at first, maybe, we treat it like a rental until that day someone dings it with their car door, and it sinks in: no else is going to fix this.

From then on, it's an investment. But the warranty is good for a few years. If something turns out to be very wrong with it, we can get it fixed for next to nothing. But it’s still ours, flaws and all.

Generally, in this case, we also have fewer options. Because we’re going to pay for it, maintain it, and rely on it, we have to be more selective. No racy thing will do for most of us, because the fuel bills would bankrupt us or spare parts are just too expensive.

So we limit our options, usually, and spend our money wisely. And in return, the car is there for us, day and night, to take us where we have to go. Sometimes little things that are simple to address pop up and get resolved, and usually the car remains reliable for a generation.

After a few years, repairs can get a bit expensive, especially if we skimp on routine maintenance. It’s usually something we expect, though, and by this time the car has been reliable for so long that we don’t mind. It’s a good car, it’s been there for us, it’s taken abuse and never complained. Fixing it up is almost like giving back - rewarding in a way that could never be achieved with a rented or leased vehicle.

But sometimes something bad happens for no apparent reason, and there’s no one but you to address the problem. You're no wrencher, and you're stuck. Perhaps the onboard computer starts acting up and the car won’t start. The mechanic – expensive by himself - can’t diagnose the problem until you find out it’s too costly to fix. So it sits in your garage silently gathering dust for months while you get used to taking the bus and your resentment against it builds. Until one day you sell it, relieved but a little sad.

My friend’s car isn’t running so well, and that’s disappointing because he really likes it. I don't blame him, it’s a beautiful, fun car from a great year.

Almost Ready

2006-01-25T09:45:00.000-08:00

Chained to my desk, as I am, performing mindless tasks for hours, my mind drifts. And it's been drifting back to Brokeback Mountain over and over again.

It is wonderful that the film has become a commercial success. It is wonderful that the film has achieved critical acclaim. It is wonderful that the film has won Golden Globes and is a contender for an oscar. How wonderful.

But for those who haven't seen it, I can't tell you that the film, itself, is wonderful. It is pleading, desperate, lonely, sad, and tragic. It is very subtle and superbly executed. And it is haunting. As a gay man I can identify with both men, as I have known them in real life and I have known them through the stories of friends, and I have known them in my own fears.

It has been over three weeks since I saw the film. I cried then, and I still have to hold back when I think of it. I forget that Ennis and Jack are fictional, and I want to reach out to make things better - to rip open time and set things right.

But that's not the point of the story, either. It is about love. How wonderful it is to have, and how it rips us apart to deny.

I can't bring myself to see it again. But I will. And I'm almost ready.

Untimely Offers

2006-01-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

A few too many years ago when I was in college, I wore my hair very long. It poured off my head in long, gently coiling blond tresses that were the envy of coeds everywhere. My hair also bought me entry into the seedy underworld of Hippy Long-Hairs. I never ever shaved by youthful beard, instead just trimming to the shortest length possible. And I padded about campus in my Birkenstocks, with a tie-died shirt and ratty jeans. But I was not a hippy.

I was trying, see, and I was even fooling people. But the key to uncovering my deception was in that same hair I wore like a Subversive’s Badge: it was meticulously managed. I spent incredible amounts of money on the proper salon shampoos, and picked (never brushed!) it out daily.

But some people didn’t see through my simple facade, and I got offers for all sorts of drugs on the street. Naturally, in my Birks and tie-dyes, I looked like someone who would want them, but I always declined.

When I wanted any of what they were selling, I went to someone I knew and trusted.

Years later, I was mid-morning napping at home on a sunny weekday when a pretty young blond woman knocked at the door. I had pulled on some shorts but wore nothing else, and my hair by this point was no more than an inch and a half long anywhere on my head. When I opened the door, she asked to use the phone for a cab, so I let her in, listened to her call – clearly with a cab company – and prepared to escort her back outside.

She hesitated, and wanted to know if I “dated.” Not being part of the “dating” scene, I was naïve and said I wasn’t sure what she was asking. Suffice it to say, she wanted to perform a service in return for money. Before I finally ejected her from the house, she told me she was high on a number of drugs, showed me her breasts (they looked OK), and tried to convince me that I should “date” her just this once because, hey, she slept with women sometimes, too.

She really was very lovely, though. When it comes to women, I have to admit she was my type. Still, if I’d wanted some of what she was selling, I had female friends I knew and trusted that I probably could have turned to.

But that story’s now an anecdote from several years ago.

Yesterday, I stood waiting in the financial district for Head Chef to pick me up from work. Dressed in an untucked aloha shirt wrinkled from 12 hours at the office and my hair now no more than a quarter of an inch long, I slumped against a planter and played Tetris on my cell phone.

People came and went through the darkness and most of them looked like me to some degree. Just off work, they were dressed for business, but loosened, disheveled, and relaxed but hastening to get home before bedtime. My blocks fell into neat little rows, disappearing as they should until something unexpected happened.

“Wanna blowjob,” he mumbled as he shuffled passed. I was taken by surprise, and looked up at the man that had just passed me, then looked around, then back to him. He looked over his shoulder at me and lingered as he prepared to cross the street, and I stared back in shock. He had a 45 year old Anglo Rasta look to him, a couple of dreads in his hair and a beard a few days old. He looked away and crossed the street.

No, no, I was sure he had offered fellacio, this was not one of my moments of hearing the wrong thing. And so I looked at myself through the eye of a third person, and wondered what about me now - bearded, disheveled in my business aloha - had made this man think I’d want what he offered. I could think of nothing. No pink triangles, no limp wrist, and no look of desperation. I was just a man at the end of a long day playing Tetris.

Maybe there’s a correlation between Tetris and paying for BJs, but I doubt it.

A few minutes later, someone I know and trust showed up and I got in the car and kissed him hello as he pulled away from the curb. I told him the story of what had just happened, and Head Chef laughed out loud at the incident. “Only you,” he assured me. “That could only happen to you.”

I doubt that. And yet, I do get some unusual offers.

Lament of The Resource Node

2006-01-18T10:54:00.000-08:00

All work and no play makes Chef a very dull boy, indeed.

I have worked every single day since January 3rd, only once working less than 10 hrs. Most days have been 13 to 15 hour days. I’m tired and bored.

My dishes aren’t done, my laundry isn’t washed, and my trash just moves from point to point in the house, rather than being taken out. My poor dog has resorted to self-petting.

But I labor on. I iron my shirt and go to work, skip dinner, and eat quickly before bed. I read reports that I am working more than 451 of the 475 Resource Nodes currently operating within my Western Profit Unit. I am unimpressed.

But I am certainly not flattered or honored, either. Pshaw.

Nor am I resentful. I, the worker, am disassociated from my work. I do it because I must, not because I care or despite the fact that I hate it. I am an efficient Resource Node. I provide high quality output.

And it will end, and I will have a brief respite. Then perhaps I will be redistributed to where Resource Nodes are in short supply.

I am tired, though. Tired of being a Resource Node. Tired of being so busy that I’m bored. My mother once said that “bored people are boring.”

At least it’s not as bad as last year.

Anthropomorphic Moment

2006-01-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

Recently, in the midst of laughing at something a witty houseguest had said, I dismissed my devoted hound. She had pushed her nose up into my face to try to say hi and to express how much she adored me but I was too wrapped up in my People Things to be bothered at that particular moment.

Rebuffed, she walked directly to the couch and began rubbing her head against the cushions. Not to scratch an itch, mind you – no, this was slow and methodical. Her ears and eyes weren't bothering her, and it was then that I realized she had made a truly remarkable breakthrough.

She is a self-petting dog.

This could change everything. And it goes way beyond the age-old cat vs. dog dispute. Friturier - an avowed dog hater - has already acknowledged a special affinity for Bella. Witnesses can attest that he pulled her lanky, 55 pound body into his lap one golden afternoon. Indeed, that little conflict is kaput. And yet there is much more to it than simply winning over a fussy cat person.

For if Bella, a mere hound of 7 years, can take responsibility for her own happiness, then we all can. If her basic need for a scratch behind the ears isn’t met, then she scratches behind her own ears. She does not suffer, and she does not complain. Yes, she certainly does still prefer to sit at my side being hugged with one hand and scratched with the other. Doubtlessly, she still prefers to stretch across the couch with her head in my lap.

And when we play fetch together she looks me in the eyes in a way that says, “this is not about the toy. It’s about fetching it with you.” You can’t fake that, and I know that nothing replaces that for her.

But she understands that sometimes those things can’t be done. And she’s OK with it, and she’s taking care of things on her own, thank you very much. She’s self-petting. And that’s no replacement for the real thing, but it’ll do. It’ll do for the moment.

Now I’m not a big fan of pet people claiming “Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From My Dog” but I’ve got to give this one to Bella.

I think more of us could be self-petting dogs. Codependents, nosey neighbors, road ragers, bitter schoolteachers, presidents, Christians, kingpins, and kingpin Christian presidents could all take a lesson from Bella. Yes, yes, yes, you want it your way. But is it your turn? And can you see to your needs on your own for a bit? Just for a little while so that the rest of us can finish what we’re doing? We haven’t forgotten you and you’ll get what you need, but just not right this second.

If they would just go rub their heads against the couch cushions for a moment they might realize just how self-sufficient they really are.

Someone Else's Wisdom

2006-01-03T17:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve been trying to find something to say to you. The little update you could read, and know what’s going on… And nothing. So much to say, but nothing sayable.

I was thinking today about a movie I never saw, or rather, a quote I almost didn’t hear. But I caught it one day while walking through the room while my sister watched Parenthood. It was something sage, something wise spoken by Grandma, not even aware of the wisdom she shared.

[Gil has been complaining about his complicated life; Grandma wanders into the room]
Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

I think of Grandma’s wisdom sometimes when I feel like Gil.

Times Worth Having

2005-12-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

Curiously, I am finding myself in the holiday spirit.

Perhaps I’m cheerful and holidayish because my work days are looking shorter, and the end is in sight. I will go home at 5:00pm and eat my dinner with my handsome Head Chef, and whisper to my dog, and watch a movie or play a video game. I will walk through my garden before the sun goes down, and it will be good.

I’ve even started to voluntarily play the Hip Holidays and other seasonal music in our collection. Mind you, this is as significant a step as when I first fail to object when Head Chef puts on his holiday favorites on Thanksgiving morning. Indeed, I myself have chosen the “Holiday” genre for iTunes to use on my computer’s Party Shuffle. And I have done so more than once.

I am ready for Christmas. And I don’t mean shopping. I am ready inside, and that is where it really counts.

As for my shopping, I never really started. Distant family – even Boulanger – have shamed me by sending something, but I have sent nothing. Far-away friends whom I miss almost daily will get nothing, too.

But I miss them all right now, so very much, and I think they know. And when I see them again, we’ll hug and smile, and it will be just like yesterday. We’ll be older, fatter, thinner, and almost certainly a little greyer, but our hands will touch and we’ll talk, and it will feel like home.

I am also ready to laugh and enjoy. The video game we play sports peculiar Christmas iconography at this time of year, but calls it by a different name. And yet, rather than fuss about how similar to Christmas it is, I busy myself preparing gingerbread cookies to present to Greatfather Winter.

And then Sean sent me this, which I marveled and laughed at. Such a feat of technical mastery could only be achieved by a lighting special fx artist of great skill. I am amused to think of a fictional collapse of the broadway, rock, and other stage show industries that leaves such accomplished and comedic people with equipment and spare time on their hands. Kudos for their remarkable humor through these hard times.

On Christmas morning we’ll be up the mountain at Friturier’s house overlooking Honolulu on what will no doubt be a sunny and beautiful day. We’ll be in shorts and flip-flops, drinking gin fizzes and eating fatty foods, and living life on Friturier’s terms. Which is to say, living today as if tomorrow was of no consequence. Laughing loudly as if everyone should hear, and enjoying our island family from way out in the middle of the ocean and up on top of the world.

These can be difficult times and they can be good times, worthy of being had.

Extremists That Lose

2005-12-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

They will wail. Oh, and they will howl. They may even boycott Ford Motor Company after all. But in the end, they lost because American businesses know that the bigotry, hate, and lies peddled by the American Family Association are bad for business. And when they forget, like Microsoft did before them, we’re here – their customers and employees – to remind them.

That’s right. Ford has rescinded their agreement with the AFA. On every single point. Every one.

You may commence consideration of a Ford Motor Company brand for your next automobile purchase. In fact, if you wrote your local dealership a letter telling them you were disgusted by their headquarters’ decision last week, you might send them another to let them know you’ve changed your mind. Just like they did.

Because fairness should be rewarded. And forgiveness, as they say, is divine.

But to the AFA and their ilk, I say: You're fighting for the wrong things. You will continue to lose, over and over again, and become more and more marginalized. You will lose because you're trying to hurt people, and we were all told as children that trying to hurt people is wrong. No one likes a playground meany.

Do Something, Something Small

2005-12-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

From: Why, the Pastry Chef, of course!
To: sales@honoluluford.com
Subject: Not Visiting Ford Dealers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_Part_19521_24179854.1134070088953"

Just wanted to leave a short note with you.

I drive two aging vehicles that will be replaced over the next two years. Due to Ford Motor Company's negotiation with the American Family Association and Ford's resulting new anti-gay policies, I will not be visiting lots that sell Ford Motor Company brands. I have too many other choices that support American values to drive a vehicle made by companies associated with hate and bigotry.

It hurts me to know that local people have to suffer for the bigotry of your headquarters, but I cannot in good conscience patronize Ford Motor Company with its current policies in place.

With Regrets,

Why, The Pastry Chef, of course!
Pauoa, O`ahu.

Ford: A Coward For The Modern Age Part I

2005-12-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog is making a loud noise about Ford Motor Company’s decision to stop advertising some of its brands in gay publications. And while I’d like to acknowledge that it’s basically his job to blow things out of proportion, it is a big deal. Just not for the reasons John has cited.

First and foremost, even though I am deeply distrusting of large corporate entities, I do believe that it’s strictly a business decision on the part of Ford. They were facing a boycott from the American Family Association (I will not link to them). They are closing several assembly plants in the US, and they have horribly sagging demand for their products. Combined with the high cost of advertising and the potential for even more loss of sales, they ran the numbers.

I don’t mean to minimize the importance of the company’s Aryan-supremacist past, as that should never be forgotten. Rather, I’m suggesting that Ford Motor Company did what many mega-corps would do these days. Faced with market impact, they ran the numbers against their demographics. They compared revenues from sales to gays and lesbians to sales from conservatives, and evaluated the impact of a boycott against the impact of a gay backlash should they pull their advertising.

Obviously, the gay market is smaller. At least for the Jaguar and Land Rover brands. But not for Volvo, which will continue to advertise in gay publications.

What I find shocking is that Ford Motor Company actually had what it has called “a constructive dialogue” with the American Family Association (AFA). This is the really big deal, because it can be effortlessly equated with entering negotiations with the Ku Klux Klan or the Taliban. No responsible corporation would acknowledge negotiating with either of these entities, yet Ford has admitted it. And they may have set a dangerous precedent in doing so.

The AFA knows that American auto makers are suffering hard times and it needs symbols of political success resulting from its strategies. Its attempts to boycott major corporate businesses usually fail because the businesses are strong and don’t really suffer. Too many failures might weaken the AFA’s support and reduce its political power. In light of this, the AFA got smart. It seized on Ford – an American icon – at a moment of weakness and threatened to hurt it further. It was a lose/lose scenario for Ford, but it was an opportunity for a badly needed success for the ruthless, dogged AFA.

Frankly, it was a brilliant move on the part of the AFA from a strategic perspective. Based on the success of their Ford effort, I’m sure we can expect to see the AFA watching American markets for weakness, and threatening other boycotts in vertical markets where they can have an impact. This could signal a huge change for the AFA and other hate groups like them, and could reap even bigger rewards for them elsewhere.

Ford: A Coward For The Modern Age Part II

2005-12-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately for Ford, it was in a bind. Doubtlessly, Ford will lose a great deal of business over their choice to end gay-friendly advertising for the Jaguar and Land Rover brands. They will lose market share to Subaru and others who stand out more sharply in these publications. But they stood to lose even more if the AFA enacted their boycott.

Faced with this choice, Ford chose the path that they predicted would hurt them the least. But when considering whether to harbor animosity toward them, we must consider that their choice to advertise in gay and lesbian publications was never an act of charity. They were by no means obligated to do so, and did only because they saw it as a means to generate sales revenue. Faced with a weak market for their products and a boycott from a powerful political entity, they had to review their activities as a corporation. And due to financial weakness, they probably needed to trim their advertising budget anyway.

But since the Volvo brand is still advertising in The Advocate, we can deduce that, rather than being a blanket statement against homosexual consumers, the change to their other brand advertising is a purely business decision. I can’t speak for every gay man out there, but Jaguar and Land Rover really aren’t attractive brands to me anyway, while Volvo is. If revenue from the gay and lesbian market was low to begin with, it makes basic business sense to either cut back advertising for those brands, or to do something radically different. Faced with the possibility of a boycott, they made the safer choice.

And while I don’t blame them, I will say this:

Head Chef and I want a new high-efficiency commuter car like the Toyota Prius, and we need a truck for our home remodeling projects. If Ford had chosen to be a responsible global automotive player and had put more resources into competing in the low-emissions market, we might hold them in consideration. But they didn’t. They pandered to gluttony, and now they’re left holding the SUV bag.

If Ford had stood up for principle over profit, Head Chef, I, and countless others would have considered them an honorable business that does the right thing even if it hurts. If they had announced a bold new marketing move for the Jaguar and Land Rover brands to coincide with their rejection of the AFA’s demands, we might have considered a Ford truck. But they didn’t.

And finally, if Ford had chosen not to negotiate with the AFA at all, Head Chef, I, and countless others might have equated them with those who stand up for freedom instead of those who fight it, like the Taliban and the Ku Klux Klan. We might have equated them with old-America values like honor and courage instead of new-America values like fear and greed. And we might have stepped foot on one of their lots. But that won’t happen now.

Because ultimately, image does matter. And I’d rather be seen driving a vehicle that symbolized enterprise and tenacious freedom rather than one that symbolizes weakness, cowardice, and by association - hate. I know it’s superficial, but I just like what freedom says about me.

Potter Schmotter

2005-12-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

I am desperate to see Brokeback Mountain.

It’s just a movie, and it’s certainly not my story. And yet, it can’t help but be my story.

I have read everything I can find about the film, watched the trailer a dozen times, and I actually check rottentomatoes on a daily basis, looking for affirmation. "Yes it is a good film," I want to hear them say.

Please, let it be a good film.

See, I believe in this movie. Not just because Ang Lee has directed the other most beautiful film ever, but because when I read "Love Is A Force Of Nature" in that context the hair on my neck stands up, and I can tell that even my skin agrees. Ignoring the toil and sacrifice that relationships take, love is the thing.

It’s the thing that matters, that leaves its aura like a residue on mountain paths, in buildings, songs, and on yesterday’s shirt. Have you ever felt it in a place you've never been before? That the place had been blessed by love?

There are three things I need from Brokeback Mountain. I need to it be the story it is purported to be; a love between two men that is beautiful and complex and tragic, as love often is. I need it to make me feel. To make me cry the way movies are supposed to when you relate to the characters. And I need it to show the world – or at least the willing – that I'm not so different or aberrant after all.

I read a hopeful review that said this film is so powerful that it could change our national dialogue about what it is to be gay. And I longed for it to be true.

But I worry that, in the public's eye, no amount of Ang Lee's mastery can legitimize this as anything other than a gay film. The most I can hope is that it’s a sleeper hit – critically acclaimed to such a degree that cinema buffs see it even if they’re uneasy about the subject matter. That women go to see it, as the studio is hoping, and maybe they see themselves in one of these men, loving someone impossible.

Maybe they feel that ache in their chest, the ache they remember as a longing for someone they cannot have. Maybe, in this way, they relate. Because that could change everything.

But I'm not counting on it.

Immunity

2005-11-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

I have had a long love for the life sciences. I actually had a college counselor say, “Chef! Stop taking biology courses! You’re not a biology major and you’re just hurting yourself.” And she was right, too. But she didn’t call me Chef.

This whole bird flu thing, although not an above-the-fold headline any more, still has me thinking. And not of my own life as much as marveling at the way the human organism responds to such threats.

There was a time when immunity was a matter of how strong your immune system was. If you contracted a disease, you lived or died, end of story. Immunity was based on the individual organism’s ability to fight off disease once it got inside.

But that’s changed, at least for homo sapiens. Starting a few millennia ago and escalating in the past hundred, humans have started fighting disease at the population level as well as inside our individual bodies. We started with simple steps, like rudimentary quarantines, and have come so far that we have global systems to identify diseases, disease pathogens and vectors, and ways to control them.

This is something that most people living today take for granted, but consider the ramifications for a population of living things when such things become possible. Think about how dramatic it would be if frogs, gazelle, or goose did that.

We have representatives of our species monitoring the overall health of the rest of the planet’s population. They’re watching for illnesses, and issuing warnings when a handful of our fellow creatures in a small, crowded corner fall victim. And as a species, we respond. We shift our resources, plan for outbreaks, and take preventative measures. We even change our environment to limit disease vectors.

I’m sure there are some animal populations other than humans that do this to some limited degree. Birds that discard a sickly chick, predators that instinctively destroy a sick member of their pack.

But we're doing something entirely different. Here we are, an awkward primate species with a large brain, proactively looking for disease, developing means of prevention and even cure. We still rely on the individual organism’s immune system, but it’s almost like a last resort. We’ve developed a new, primary immune system, one that protects us as a species, and not just as individual critters crawling around spawning and eating.

In terms of evolution, I think that’s revolutionary. It’s like the appearance of the first rudimentary feathers, or even a blood-rich lining that permits an occasional gasp of air for breath. I only wonder if it can persist. But I guess none of us is permanent.

The Holiday That Merely Happened

2005-11-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving was a piece of frozen cheesecake at Costco.

The pleasant woman cut the small wedges for eager passers-by. We thanked her and she smiled and we stepped a few feet away so that the next admirer could crowd in for their slice. What luck, to be there on that particular day, when samples of such a delicacy are available.

I’ve adored cheesecake for ages, you see. And so just the idea of cheesecake was titillating. I had scored a significant prize, and the decision to eat it or just to bask in my unexpected fortune took a couple of moments. Oh, to revel in it, so smooth and sweet with just the hint of sourness and a crunch of spiced crust.

Standing there in the aisle with large, impersonal glass freezers on each side of me, the vast grey concrete floor sprawling off in all directions under displays heaped with discount merchandise, I made a conscious choice between eating my small chunk of cake in one bite, or in two smaller ones. But my gluttonous nature won out, and I popped it into my mouth with an eager satisfaction.

And it was nice. Fine, even. I pressed it against my palate with my tongue, testing it for flavor and texture. It was a bit doughy, and the crust wasn’t really firm enough to provide contrast for the filling. It was mildly sweet, but that hint of cream cheese I anticipated was not there.

It was pleasant, but not enough. The woman who presented it was kind and the other customers there in the warehouse were polite. But taken as a whole, this year Thanksgiving was a disappointing cheesecake.

Nearly Sinless In The Garden

2005-11-21T09:47:00.000-08:00

I had promised myself that I would sin this past Sunday. I dressed for sinning, and brushed my teeth and ate my breakfast fully intent on sinning. But I went out to the car to go sin, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Head Chef had been working on me all morning to play “hooky,” and I finally caved.

An apparently Christian woman at my office admonished me a few weeks ago for having worked the previous Sunday. “Oh, dear,” she said with grave disapproval, “that’s a sin.” I suppose she would take heart knowing that I neither worked on Sunday nor coveted my neighbor’s wife.

I’m hoping that perhaps I can avoid being stoned to death since I observed the Sabbath. Instead of committing a grievous sin, we went to the Foster Botanical Garden and observed beautiful specimens of tropical trees and plants, many of which are legally designated as “exceptional” and thus magically protected by a bronze plaque nailed to their trunks. I imagine them being infused with strange powers that selectively turn the blades of saws and indiscriminate pruning shears, but not the nails accompanying bronze plaques.

My co-worker might also be pleased to note that I did not create or worship other gods while there at the Garden. Well, OK, there was this one baobab tree that was particularly massive. Head Chef and I discussed that it seemed so logical for native cultures to see it as a link between the earthly world and some other plane. I could almost feel that link, myself, but I did not create a false god in the process.

I also did not: dishonor my parents, kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet my neighbor’s property or his wife. I mean, please – like I’d covet his wife. Don’t get me wrong, she’s nice, but I’m not even into him let alone her.

OK, I may have blasphemed just little bit when I spotted that baobab tree. It’s really big, you gotta understand.

But I did not work on Sunday. Now that it’s Monday, I’m kinda wishing I had.

Hungary Was Even Worse

2005-11-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

"You know what, sir," she asked in a vaguely ethnic southern accent.

I glanced up from my falling blocks of color, missing a key placement, and noted the stout woman angrily hunkered in the seat next to mine. Tight coils of salt-and-pepper hair bunched around her head, and she set her jaw, getting ready to tell me what. The busy terminal gate was crammed full of people, none of whom paid either of us any mind. We could have just as easily been completely alone.

"I was stranded there in Oakland," she announced. "Oakland!"

"You were stranded there?" I queried, puzzled. What an awful thing to have happen. And in Oakland, of all places.

"I ain't lyin. It really happened."

I nodded, more to confirm I’d heard her than to express understanding, and she continued.

"I think I’m going to have them call this time. The, the, you know – them ticket agents. Then I won’t have to sleep at the gate while they wait in the lobby!" She was quite upset. "Nobody told me they were gonna to be in the lobby," she offered. And then after a moment of thought, she conceded, "Although I s’pose I could have gone down to see if they were there."

I nodded thoughtfully, still not clear on what she was talking about. My game had become a disaster while trying to be polite, and my neat rows of squares were now in disarray. I closed the lid.

"And then the stewardess comes up to me and says that three men are waiting for me in the lobby, and I tell her, 'why you wait till I'm getting on the plane back to tell me that?'" I furrowed my brow in genuine concern. Genuine because I simply didn’t understand her circumstance, and because whatever it was seemed to be very stressful.

"I ain’t lying. I’m definitely gonna be tellin them in Honolulu to call so I don’t have to sleep in the, the – the terminal. And maybe they’ll be there this time."

We were no longer alone at the crowded gate. Other strangers – none so strange as my sudden conversation companion – were now covertly smiling and emitting expressions of sympathy. One man seemed to be suppressing the urge to join our talk and he fidgeted forward and back, glancing our way and grinning.

To comfort her, I assured her that they (whoever they were) certainly would have learned from their previous mistake (whatever it was) and would not repeat it. She seemed grateful.

"And you’ll never believe what happened when I was in Europe. You know about Europe?" she asked, her flat brown features scrunched into concern. I wasn’t sure if she was asking whether I knew of its existence, or about how it runs.

"Sure, Europe," I confirmed.

"Passport! Passport!" she yelled above the din of other conversations in the terminal. The newspaper held by a woman nearby seemed to be taken by surprise, and it shuddered just briefly. I looked on, puzzled more than ever.

"And I told the man, 'I don’t understand,' I’d say, and he’d come running after me yelling, 'Passport! Passport!'" With each incantation of the word, she’d wave her hand in the air like a customs official chasing her through the airport.

"And I told them, everywhere I went, 'I don’t understand, what’s this passport?' and he told me he’d arrest me if I didn’t show him a passport." She laughed, but I was unsure if I was supposed to laugh along. "Everywhere I went! It really happened. I ain’t lyin," she explained.

"And Hungary! Hungary was even worse," she warned.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her you’re supposed to meet your ride in the lobby or at baggage claim these days. Nor that you really do have to show your passport at international airports.

I just hope she didn’t really fly back to Oakland just because her ride didn’t meet her at the gate in Honolulu.

Home Work

2005-11-14T11:08:00.000-08:00

We here in the Kitchen are home owners and home makers. To achieve our goals associated with those titles we become armchair botanists, technophiles, lay zoologists, hobbyist designers, craftsmen, and procrastinators. In short, we are distracted and lazy.

As such, our great home remodel project of 2005 has taken significantly longer than the three months that Head Chef once said it would take. Oh, and there are excuses. Some of our excuses are even reasons. But not all.

Despite our collective attention deficits and lethargy, Head Chef and I are motivated by nothing more effectively than the looming threat of visitors. We look forward to their arrival and the beach time we will take with them and the meals we will share. But we also stand on the steps to our little home in Pauoa and look around us with the eyes of a third person. And we shake our heads and think, “oh fuck.”

So this weekend, I eschewed my workplace responsibilities and we worked on the house. We floored the remainder of the hallway and the entire master bedroom. We cleaned. We investigated local options for kitchen cabinetry and planned the bathroom remodels. And then we worked in the yard.

If you know us even casually enough to have visited our home only once, you know our love for gardening. The front garden, now only 6 months old, is already reaching epic status. The gingers are getting taller, the brugmansia is blooming, and the Rangoon creeper already hides the stone wall. The ensete banana threatens to rule the world.

We dug in to our elbows, getting filthy and doing what is arguably one of my favorite things about gardening… discovery. From beneath four feet of shiny fern foliage, Head Chef produced a long-forgotten vanda sporting two spikes of shiny purple blossoms. Anthuriums that had tipped over were rooted, thriving, and blooming. And our new trees had fresh new growth popping out at the branch tips.

We planted a new torch ginger - one of my favorites - on the side of the house, and stood back to admire it. Now only 6 feet tall, it will one day reach as much as 15, with bright red flowers the size of large apples atop sturdy stalks jutting from the ground.

We do this – I do this, and I stand back and see what is done, and I feel full. I see the new floor in the bedroom from atop the living room stairs and the thriving garden and all the little improvements that are made over time, and I witness proof that things do get better, and that we have a hand in that. I see a sort of time lapse progression in my mind, from then till now, and I project outward just a bit – a skill that Head Chef teaches me each day – and I know that this is good. That this life is worth it, and that all the tediousness and doubt is made moot by these moments of doing this with him.

A Simple Wish For Texas

2005-11-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

Here in Hawai`i, I am almost as American as you are.

We could dress the same and stand on the street corner shoulder-to-shoulder, and the average person would think we’re both the same. Equal citizens of this great land.

But we’re not. Not here in Hawai`i, and not in Oregon. Nor Montana, Nevada, New York, and Michigan. And certainly not in Texas. I couldn't fool you, though. You already know you must protect your marriages against me.

I only wish I were out to get you, and that I had the means to do so. That I wielded the insidious power that you have attributed to me. Then, at least, I could stand next to you on the street, looking the same and dressing the same, with the same daily concerns and similar exhaustive routines and understand why I am oppressed. And I could smile wickedly and know, deep inside, that nothing you could do could stop me.

Because then I could give you a taste of your own medicine. So you could know what it means to be declared a lesser citizen by your peers, and to have a neighbor sneer at you as she hastens away. To be told that your family is undeserving but that the next one is.

If only I could just brush you ever so slightly, and make you less American, too.

Working In Mililani

2005-11-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

Listening to the online radio as I work through lunch, I hear the DJ say, “And for our fifth caller, we have a free lunch from Maruju Market. A pound and a half of fresh poké from Maruju Market - what a nice lunch.”

Poké. Heh. Try finding that anywhere else.

Also at this client site, I overhear things such as:

“We havin one lunchtime meeting, ya?”
“Try hand me da kine?”
“Oh, he no stay here no mo. He wen stay in Ku`unani’s ol’ cube.”

Makes working here worth it, to watch a Vice President of a major bank talk story Hawai`ian style. Well, that, and the drive across the island under bright skies dotted with white puffy clouds. And getting out of the car to be bathed in the fragrance of Eucalytpis leaves recently pelted by rain... And... And... And...

EDIT: And... on the drive home, there were not one, but two rainbows arching over the freeway on the way into town.

Shaving Off The Weekend

2005-10-31T11:57:00.000-08:00

I can always tell what kind of weekend I’ve had when I shave for work on Monday.

It’s the simplest kind of litmus test. If my beard has grown a lot, I was most likely very stressed. If it didn’t grow much at all, I was unusually comfortable with my world.

This morning, the stubble on my neck and cheeks was extraordinarily long. And I know why. Stability was threatened. A perfect (“perfect perfect,” we agreed with one another over the phone) opportunity presented itself along with the threat of ethical complications and terrible loss. The conflict of the two wracked my nerves all weekend.

Just the very thought of realizing this goal in such an excellent (“perfect perfect”) manner was so tantalizing that when I told Head Chef about it, he donned an uncharacteristic project management role to make sure I followed up. He became so businesslike about it that it made me want to tell him, “Hey, quitit, that’s my job!”

But always, in the recesses of my consciousness, I knew of the risk inherent in even investigating this possibility. And then, in the course of a third call late Friday, I found myself face-to-face with it. The ethical challenge, the potential of loss. Of actually making things worse, not better. So much worse that I actually experienced a moment of panic as I itemized the horrors that could befall my little family if my delicate proposition failed. Head Chef witnessed my abject terror, which humbled me.

But he was all business, and so were others who knew of my plight. And so I repeated their reassurances to myself over and over again to calm my nerves. It worked, much of the time. Yet, left alone without the distractions of an imaginary world, an immediate remodeling challenge, or a pet-management task, my breathing became constricted. That knot of nausea welled in my chest. While mindlessly painting baseboard molding in the garage, my thoughts turned to worries of imminent doom, and I nearly had to sit down.

I walked through Home Depot and drank with friends like a man who’d received a Diagnosis. Playing the social games and going through the motions, behaving appropriately but never taking the fullness of my thoughts off the delicate concern that would face me Monday.

So when I shaved this morning, I took note of what my weekend of anxiety had wrought and made a decision. At 8:47 am, I made a fourth call. I was logical and clear, and we talked about how disappointing it was that this chance was not to be explored.

It’s not that I hate shaving. In fact, I rather like it when my beard looks full. But the anxiety necessary to achieve the affect is just not worth it.

I Wanna New Drug

2005-10-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Head Chef and I were talking about the age old Mac vs Windows debate last night.

Just for fun, I launched World of Warcraft (Oh, and could you hand me the tourniquet and syringe?) last night and turned up the video settings as far as our current Mac would support them. My character could basically only stand there and look around a bit because the animation became choppy and unbearable. But the view was amazing. I think Head Chef may have actually gasped. "There are mountains in the distance," he exclaimed. "I've never seen those! Is that a cave up there?"

And thus began the lament. I knew about this hidden view that better video hardware could bring, but he had never experimented before. Undoubtedly, such higher-quality video makes the game more immersive. Perhaps even more effectively playable. Hence, more fun. Possibly, even move it up a notch on the federal schedule of controlled substances.

So it’s official. We want gaming-quality machines, now, and the Mac mini and eMac aren't suitable for such tasks. Almost. Just barely, but not quite. Such a shame, since the Mac Mini's not even a year old. And so cute.

So I launched Firefox and did a comparison of the low-end Power Mac tower against a gaming machine sold by Dell. Naturally, the Dell has a better video card and faster hard disks and a monitor for about the same price as the stand-alone Mac tower. So, add faster disks, upgrade the video card, and buy a display for the Mac, and it costs almost $1000 more than the equivalent Dell. But Head Chef *likes* the Macs and wants to stick with them, and naturally, it's my religion. And yet, even as devout as I am, economics like that are hard to argue.

"Why the difference?" He asks. I answer by telling him that it's the difference between a very fast Hyundai and a Lexus that goes the same speed. He understands, but it's disappointing nonetheless. Still, he's willing to pay the price, and starts working numbers.

But there's another issue: He wants these to be investments, not machines we replace in another year. And so that brings up the question of whether these machines will last - will they be upgradeable and suitable for this purpose for a longer period than an iMac would?

Yes, I say, and Macs are kept longer by their owners than Wintel boxes. But there are also catches: Video cards, RAM, and hard drives can be upgraded readily, but CPUs and motherboards aren't replaceable on most computers, let alone a Mac. Add to that the question of Apple's switch to an Intel architecture over the next year, and that leaves a big question about future software compatibility, from an investment perspective.

What to do, what to do. I don't think we'll do much of anything in the short term - the Mac Mini and eMac are fine. Not good, mind you, but fine. Too bad I had to show him that view of the mountains.

In A Name

2005-10-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

Every time my subconscious overhears someone saying, “Hi, Sean,” I experience a deluge of memory and nostalgia.

When Head Chef and I made our journey to China for that long week of adventure, we experienced a lot more than we realized. In the frozen Chinese North, we ate dumplings in buildings made from plywood and cloth and witnessed teams of traditional dancers on the side of the road performing for no one but themselves. But those are only the things you do and see.

We also got names. Well, at least Head Chef did. He got a name that is memorable because it sounds like English. It sounds like “Hi, Sean.” And so every time I overhear a phone conversation with a man named Sean I picture myself sitting in that hotel room in Beijing.

I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall, watching as Head Chef got his name. He bounced about, not attempting to hide his enthusiasm, and it seemed as though perhaps the small room with the odd Western decor might not succeed in holding him. I remember how the rest of my family sat as they chatted with the poised Chinese girl. She perched on the edge of the bed with her two books at the ready while she worked studiously and with great humor at naming the Americans. Her posture was flawless and she seemed to be enjoying the excitement in the air. It was her first time to Beijing, too.

I didn’t get a name then. Since my own name sounds like the Mandarin word for “zombie,” I got a lot of laughs, but no real name. Not for a long time. Too long. Because terrible, terrible things befell That Lovely Chinese Girl.

From across the ocean I timidly made a desperate request. I needed that name, and I needed it before it was too late. I needed it from That Lovely Chinese Girl, or it would be useless to me. Boulanger, strong and understanding even as she braved another chapter of grief, took my message to the dying girl, and I was named.

It was a name that astonished me. Its meaning was flattering beyond all measure and the importance of it took me by such surprise that I was struck dumb. It was something to live up to. Something grand, and bold, and strong. It was as though an angel had taken me into her wings and said, “I believe in you” just before letting go. I am still humbled.

But I have lost the words. I’ve lost the paper I wrote them on, all those times. And I’ve forgotten how they are pronounced. I have forgotten my own name. But I have not forgotten how it feels to be given one that is greater than I am. It vibrates inside me like a triangle that is struck gently in a great concert hall and never stops ringing. I think that’s what you call a legacy.

So if I should catch my breath when someone nearby greets their friend Sean, it’s just the deluge washing over me. Just a memory of beauty and wisdom, and that ringing that never stops.

Paths We Take

2005-10-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

Coming out to my family and friends was so much easier than I could have intellectually expected, and vastly less traumatizing than my emotional fears had prepared me for. When my Mother said, “Well, Honey, you know I don’t give a damn,” I cried. Just because I was prepared to cry, because I was expecting something awful. I cried even though she was right – I did know she didn’t give a damn.

I was 21. I am now 33.

This year, Coming Out Day came and went. I read a little blurb on a website and read a friend’s blog entry, but I did not come out. I can’t think of anyone I could have come out to. And I wanted to add to the day, to somehow contribute in these important times, but I couldn’t think of anything relevant.

Then this morning I found myself thinking of someone I know who is contributing. He wrote me months ago, asking for help. He was 32, local, and in desperate need of happiness he’d been unable to find in his church, on Christian dates, and living with shame. He was gay, he said, but didn’t know how to come out. He signed his letters anonymously, and said that he’d give me his name if we ever met in person.

We exchanged a lot of emails, and I tried to be as honest as I could. Coming out is terrifying for most people. While some may not experience difficulty at all, many experience a lot of rejection from their families or friends. And then there are the problems associated with being newly out amongst other gay men. Predators, heartbreak, rejection based on your inexperience. And for him as a Christian, drinking and drug use would make a lot of the social scenes I was familiar with uncomfortable.

We finally met for lunch, and naturally, he was frightened. Hell, I was meeting a strange man at a difficult time in his life and I was nervous. I could only imagine how he must have felt, having lunch with another gay man in open daylight. What if someone saw us? What if he bumped into someone he knew? What would he say? Surely, they’d know!

But the meeting went well. We talked about fears, plans, hopes, and we decided that everything was going to be OK.

I’ve talked to him since, and he is as I promised he would be: alternately elated, heartbroken, ecstatic, and crestfallen. He is going to a local gay church and meeting real, live men. Some, he says, are very handsome. He is having crushes and suffering disappointments. Such is the path of one learning to love, and it is difficult and exhilerating beyond description.

But oh, is love ever worth it. Everyone should know how that feels, shouldn’t they?

Golf Opposition

2005-10-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

I do not wish to like golf. Golf is expensive, time-consuming, and fussy. It’s a tool of the insider’s old-boy network and it has been co-opted by the rest of the world so that they can feel like they’re in on the joke. Or, at least, to enable them to get an angle on the deal.

It’s popular because it’s a business skill used in lieu of physical combat. I would much rather engage in some old-fashioned wrestling match than dress up, spend all that money, and swing a stick at a ball. At least then you could justify the competitive tempers that have to be suppressed for the civility of the golf course.

But I did have a good time. Still, if it’s all the same to anyone, I’d rather not like golf on principle alone.

Quietude in Motion

2005-10-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

I walked home through the rain wearing my work clothes.

We’ve had a rainy spell here as the result of a tropical storm that (thankfully) dissipated before it reached us. We had flash flood warnings, even. But as the storm’s remnants have passed over us, the bands of rainclouds have become less and less remarkable.

And I don’t mind the rain one bit. I turn off the water on the garden, yes. I stand at the windows and envision the green that will soon cover Puowaina at the other end of Pauoa Valley. I feel the great big sigh of “Thank You” that everything seems to say.

And I walk home in the rain. Head Chef isn’t available to give me my ride home, so I walk. Just a half an hour on foot, I take it as an opportunity to get exercise. I walk with purpose. The rain is incidental. It’s not a factor; it’s just the environment I must perform this task in. And still I relish the feeling of the sprinkle of moisture on my face, the observation of headlights blurred by drops of rain so small I don’t feel them alight in my eyes.

I walk almost the whole way home without thinking a thing. Feeling visceral and damp. Pointed at my destination, walking, watching, being. It’s a pleasant thing, to move blankly through the rain.

Time Travel

2005-10-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

We were waiting for new tires on the white car when we inadvertently stepped into a world I’d almost forgotten.

To call the Dole Cannery complex in Iwilei a mall is to be unnecessarily generous. Yes, it was definitely intended to be a mall. The structure is there. The theatre still operates. But the signatures of a mall – people, teenagers (if you must make the distinction), and open shops – they are simply not there.

Like the sad little shopping complex across the street from Temple Square in Salt Lake City, it is no longer a mall. It is a ghost mall.

But it is also across the street from Costco, one of O`ahu’s busiest businesses. While our car got new shoes we were on foot and hungry. So we entered the empty corridors of the Cannery Ghost Mall in search of food and an hour to kill.

Fitting, then, that we lost track of time.

After our disappointingly successful attempt at food, we stopped into an unmarked Asian imports store near the Cannery’s exit. The front room was what you’d expect. Some Chinese wedding chests converted to entertainment armoires, tea sets, fabrics, lotus pots, and more Chinese tchochkes than you could shake a stick at. The proprietor was behind a desk, and she greeted us wanly.

Head Chef made it into the back room, and dug in. Here were the gems. Beautiful decorative planters in rare glazes at ridiculously low prices. Gear for the discerning Bonsai gardener. Chinese teas, and more classic Chinese furniture than appeared in the first space. I spotted an unpriced pot the right size for our night-blooming cereus, and mentioned it to Head Chef.

At that moment, the proprietor peeked into the room. She was a Chinese woman in her fifties or sixties with salt and pepper hair, perfect posture, and a beguiling grace. In her mild Chinese accent, she asked, “Do you bonsai?” Our bond was established.

Head Chef negotiated a wonderful price for the pot I had found, and I unearthed it from beneath the stock of other items that had been stacked upon it. And all the while, we talked of gardens. Of common shared fondness for China. And as I pushed our new find to the register in the next room, they talked of teas.

When I returned to find out where the conversation had lead to, I was ushered to a chair at a little table in the back room. “Shoshi shoshi ba,” she said, and warmed hot water for our tea. And there we sat, chatting and drinking the best oolong tea I had ever had. We talked of palaces, gardens, walls, and the exceptional individuals from Old China who touched us.

She spoke fondly of family, friends, and places she longed to return to, and spun our memories into new imaginations of the places we had not yet seen. Of another Star Pupil who would make an impression we would never ever forget. Time passed only when the bell on the shop door marked the entrance of a potential customer who then left without a word. Our proprietor never stood and only barely glanced their direction.

Finally, after a third cup, we had to go. We bought some teas to take home with us, exchanged phone numbers, and then returned to our newly shoed car in the bustling parking lot.

The contrast was jarring.

It Matters Not

2005-09-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

If you haven’t been following the news, the California legislature passed a marriage equality bill that would have made gays and lesbians truly equal in the eyes of the law of that state. And their governor, The Governator, vowed to veto it immediately, noting that it should be the courts that decide. He likes him some activist judges, that Governator.

But it took him over a week to get around to his veto paperwork.

A journalist whom I really respect supposed in his blog that The Governator was postponing his veto of this bill passed by the representatives of the people for a good reason. This journalist supposed that Arnold was worried about his place in history. That maybe his conscience was getting the better of him.

But, of course, The Governator did veto the bill. Naturally.

Men of power and ambition are willing to hurt anyone as long as it benefits them. Arnold may have actually wanted to sign the bill. No, really. Maybe he did. But I imagine he didn’t really care one way or the other.

What Arnold cares about it is him. What Arnold cares about is getting where he wants to be. He wants another term, to make his rich friends richer, and to amend the US Constitution so he can do it all for them again from the comfort of the Whitehouse. This is what The Governator wants.

And make no mistake about it, any principle he has is for sale if it will get him closer to his goals. There is no one he wouldn’t hurt. No one.

As for the journalist… he may have been right. I do hope that the Governator cared about his place in history. I hope he saw the ad comparing him to George Wallace and felt a pang of guilt. I hope he looked at his signature line over and over again, delaying the act of vetoing because he knew it was wrong. I hope he had long talks with Maria trying to justify what he knew was nothing more than a career move.

But what if he did? Does it matter?

Sodomite Companies Want Your Children!

2005-09-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

The lovely, witty, dirty-minded Wonkette posted today regarding an article at the World Net Daily website about corporate America’s pro-homosexual cuddling.

The World Net Daily is what is increasingly called wingnut, or extreme right-wing. For those of you who wish to know what the opposite of that would be, that’s moonbat. I have no idea what moonbat comes from or what it implies, but wingnut seems pretty obvious.

Although I don’t recommend anyone else do this, I actually took at look at their related reader poll and a handful of linked articles.

As I said, I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart. I am a calloused, jaded homosexual and reading vitriol about people like myself doesn’t shock or dismay me the way it might someone who were simply a friend of equality, say. Think of this as your “Do not attempt. Professional driver on closed course” warning.

One thing I noticed, however, was the repeated use of the term pro-homosexual. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely advocate for my fellow sexual outlaws. I loves me my homo homies. However, I wouldn’t even describe myself as pro-homosexual, let alone America’s Fortune 100.

To me, pro-homosexual is a lot like the term you used to hear for reproductive choice advocates. Back when, they were “pro-abortion.” But saying someone is pro-abortion is like saying they advocate for abortion in all instances of pregnancy, which is clearly absurd and very misleading.

Similarly, I would expect a company that takes a pro-homosexual stance to be holding classes on homosexuality to teach people the upside of being gay, and discouraging heterosexuality. They could perhaps have a same-sex mentoring program where women taught each other proper cunnilingus techniques, and gag reflex suppression sessions during lunchtime for the boys. They might feature an article in their company newsletter that talks about the diseases you can get from heterosexual intercourse and the horrors of child bearing/rearing, noting that people who date same sex partners need not worry their pretty little heads.

And then, of course, they could throw separate company parties for women and men. The boys would be treated to a white-party styled dance, and they could give out ecstacy and condoms and make sure there’s a back room lit by a dim red light. I don’t know what would be the equivalent for lesbians. Maybe an Indigo Girls concert.

Now that’s what I call a pro-homosexual company. Down with all the trappings of heterosexuality, up with sodomites!

No, instead all we have are these rich firms who simply acknowledge that homosexuals work for them, and promise not to treat them any differently than straights. Although that’s really quite kind of them, it’s hardly what I would call pro-homosexual.

But oh well.

Coincidence?

2005-09-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Salary and Slavery have all but two letters in common.

Coincidence? I think not.

Rededication

2005-09-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

Call it a crisis, call it what you will. I am rededicating myself to myself.

Over the past 9 years or so I developed a body I was not ashamed of. A taking-the-shirt-off-in-public(-sometimes) type of body that I liked. I put on 50lbs of mostly-muscle over the course of those years and I liked it.

But my ectomorphic body relishes the opportunity to drop weight and has shed 15 of those pounds this year. It has been maliciously rejoicing the entire time. I am not amused.

So this morning I dragged my shriveled and smug body back to the gym for a reasonable (re)starter workout and a stern talking-to. It was a rude awakening. I forgot my sweat towel. I realized my workout shorts did not stay round my waist the way they did before. This eliminated the possibility of cardio lest I provide an entirely inappropriate and potentially illegal erotic exercise show. I pressed weights, and realized just how much strength I’ve lost. The mirrors mocked me. I did not step on the scale for fear the alarms would go off.

Disappointing, yes. But this is where it starts. I’ll be sore, and I’ll build the strength and size back. Quickly, even. I will defeat my nature yet again. I might even be in better shape than before.

I’m only telling you so you’ll hold me to it. I mean, we have guests coming for the Holidays!

What I Am Doing

2005-09-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am wasting away a bit each day, but I am doing it for a good cause. I am running into battle and swinging with all my might. I am falling behind schedule before I even begin, and going home on time anyway. Some nights I send my animal in to do the dirty work while I thumb at the trigger of my rifle. I am making grand plans and procrastinating on their execution. I am distressing at the condition of the carpets and replacing them even as the menagerie atop them runs amok.

I am watching my expenses. But I am not clipping coupons.

I am standing at the garden silently, watching the life unfold even as my intellect tells me I can’t. I am seeing change that is not yet there.

Someone Truly Remarkable

2005-09-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

What a lot of thoughtful, amusing, absurd, and delightful fiddle-dee-dee!

We do so miss the Boulanger in all her prickly pearishdom.

Help John Mayer Find A Boyfriend

2005-09-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

I guess he’s a really 00’s man, that John Mayer. His song “Daughters” is a touching lesson on how important it is to treat daughters well. Because the wrongs parents impose on their girls scar them forever.

And isn’t it true? Really? I mean, think of the stories you know. We can all tell one.

But John Mayer is overexposed. On local Hawai`ian (and Utahan) pop radio, “Daughters” has been on a twenty minute rotation for weeks and weeks. And weeks.

At first, I loved the song. I sang along with the lyrics I knew and enjoyed the warm fuzzy I got. Then it became a little too common. And then I heard this lyric:

Boys, you can break
You'll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without warmth from
A woman's good, good heart

And now I’ve had quite enough. Boys, you can break!?

John Mayer has clearly never dated one of those boys who’s been broken. Just like girls, John, they stay broken. And they hurt people – their daughters included. The best wo/man’s good, good heart does nothing to fix them.

So ladies and gentlemen, let’s all help John find a boyfriend who’s been broken to help shake him out of his anachronistic mindset. Shall we?

Unlikely Times

2005-09-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that these days you could elect an actor as your state’s Governor, and then not end up with gays marrying each other?

Maybe The Ocean

2005-09-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

When I talk to off-islanders who want to know what it’s like to live in Paradise, the first thing I tell them is that there’s a price to pay for everything. This city is not without the same downsides that are found in any city. Soul-crushing traffic, high prices. You name your gripes about Big Town X, and they’re here, too.

But I begin my list of things that make it worthwhile with the quality of the air. I may be facing another twelve or fourteen hour day at work, but in the car drive to the office I roll down the window and breath deep as I listen to Hawai`ian on the radio. And it’s not just that the air is clean, either. It has magic in it. It has life. And I guess maybe that life seeps into us, because people in Hawai`i live four years longer than people on the mainland.

Or maybe it’s that our own lives don’t seep out as fast.

I also end my list with the ocean. Because no matter what’s wrong, I always feel better if I can just float in the ocean. Just bobbing in the waves for a few minutes does something to the mind and body. It lifts one out of depressions and worries so effectively that sometimes I wonder if it’s my outlook that’s changing, or if the world actually improves as I rock in the ocean’s hands.

So it should come as no surprise that Tuesday came today and I’m a happier man. Lei Bear Day was a wonderful laundry list of goodness. Friends, jovial santa-shaped men, debauchery, late nights, bright beaches, Hawai`ian music, keiki hula, important conversations, invigorating air, and floating in the ocean.

Maybe the Pacific lifted my spirits, or maybe it was just a very excellent weekend.

Lei Bear Day

2005-09-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend we will celebrate Labor Day and Lei Bear Day. It’s not Gay Pride, but, as Boulanger would say, it’s still “Homosexual Weekend.” Some of the friends who will be joining us would have been in New Orleans being decadent, but a certain storm you may have heard about changed their plans. We’re glad they’re here, and not there, needing help.

Our guest is still here, and thankfully, has managed to extend his stay. Apparently, he’s having a good time despite the fact that Head Chef and I are working during the days and the house is in full remodel and filled to the rim with dogs. He’s been the perfect sort of guest, and I’m so glad we’ve gotten to know him better.

I’m still feeling very dissociated, though. And irritable. Getting back into the groove has been very challenging, and I think part of it may have to do with the simple fact that the routine I left isn’t here any more. I have lots of questions and so very few answers.

Head Chef wants to know what the questions are, but there are so many that I keep losing track of them. It’s like walking into a record store with a mental list of everything you want to buy. By the time you get back out to your car with your new CDs, you realize that not one of them was on your list. But the list was also full of good, even important stuff. It’s just that you’ve already spent your money and it’s time to get on with the rest of your plans, so you don’t go back in.

Tour Of The Possum Pie Kitchen

2005-09-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

I’m something of a privacy advocate. That may seem contradictory if you don’t know me, since I have a public weblog that will be indexed, cached, and searchable for all eternity. If you know me, though, it may seem even more contradictory, since I can’t keep my mouth shut about every detail of my personal life.

Still, you won’t find my name in here, and you won’t find the names of the other cooks who have a hand in making Possum Pie. People who read the menu but don’t order anything I may refer to by name, and I think that’s fine.

After all, I will be talking about my life, and that will inevitably give the truly clever plenty of information to piece together my identity.

Still, if you’re interested in knowing more about the qualities of some of the people in the kitchen, I will update this entry from time to time for that purpose.

Head Chef: The most important cook in this kitchen. Bubbly, affable, and imminently likable, he inspires confidence and respect in all who know him. He’s always on the lookout for something fresh and exciting to put on the menu.
Boulanger: The Bread Cook. As infinitely satisfying for the soul as the fresh-baked goods she prepares, Boulanger is lovely and stylish. She possesses a wicked wit, a hearty laugh, and a fervent drive to make a positive difference in people’s lives.
Friturier: The fry cook. Living his life by a creed of excessive indulgence, he knows well the finer things and people who simply must be known. Easy to laugh or gossip and always ready to entertain, Friturier lives in the moment.
Grillardin: The grill cook. Grillardin is animated and excited, a lover of food, drink, and a very good time.
Tournant: The rotating cook. Tournant is someone I like, but not necessarily always the same person. I will probably be sharing the relevant qualities of each Tournant in the entry in which they are named.
The Butcher Commis: The common cook. Not necessarily someone I’m fond of, and not always the same person. People like co-workers, service personnel, and the like are most likely The Butcher Commis.
Pastry Chef: The maintainer of this journal.

Aloha

2005-08-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

I've been writing privately. Once in a while, as a sort of test.

1) Would I blog if I could?

I've passed the first test, and so, since Blogger is free, I am starting the second test.

2) Will I blog when I have one?

I've posted a few of my past writings from the last few months that I felt fit for public consumption, just to make sure there's some content.

If I pass this test, I get to have my own hosted, customized blog that's more full featured. But that's for the distant and uncertain future. We can plan for that just like everything else we do. Naturally, all plans work out perfectly.

For Grounding

2005-08-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

We stayed up late last night entertaining a houseguest, and I’m horribly jet-lagged and possibly hung-over. I can’t tell which, or in what ratio.

My return to Honolulu has not been as triumphant and celebratory as I had imagined. On the contrary, I’ve felt disconnected and like I don’t belong here. My home doesn’t feel like home, welcomes have been scant and from people I needed them from the least.

It’s like I have been granted this overwhelming feeling of dread.

But I just saw something that grounded me for a fleeting moment. And you won’t believe what it was. A nametag. Yeah. Of a co-worker I really like and admire. She wasn’t even there, and I think that if she had been the effect wouldn’t have been as profound.

For that moment I felt like my head cleared, and I stopped walking and smiled. “Oh, wow,” I thought to myself. “Her.”

And then I started walking again, and these familiar but unwanted feelings returned.

What I’m Waiting For

2005-08-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

I was sent off to Utah for 2 months, and I was furious. But I calmed down, as I do, and I got used to the idea that it was really just like an excruciatingly long workweek. With one day weekends every 11 days.

For a while, I tried to have a life here. I tried to make the best of the pitiful hotel gym facilities and to be interested in going out to dinner with these strangers that have become my co-castaways. But finally, there was no denying it. The gym is just unworkable and my fellow victims here in exile are not my friends, no matter how much I try. And it’s a shame, really, because they’re not my kind of people and they don’t seem to like one another very much, either.

So I found myself playing my video game, setting goals and being excited for the next milestone. And I knew the whole time that I was really just escaping. Just biding my time till I was permitted to return home.

Isn’t that funny? I’m an adult, but I have to ask for permission to go home.

But I’ve reached my in-game goal and I’m stymied on what to do with myself. I’m waiting to go home, to run a house and work in a yard. To have a dog stand with her nose less than an inch from mine as I intone her name in a sacred chant of praise.

Diary Entry From Above The Pacific

2005-07-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

So, I've been away from home for about three weeks now, but I got to go home long enough to have a taste. And it was a good taste, too.

I arrived in Honolulu on Friday night, and was a bit sleepy. On Saturday, Head Chef and I slept in, but of course sleeping in for me is a bit different than it is for him. I slept till 6am. What can I say, I'm on Mountain time. That was sleeping in for me. :)

I had some computery things I wanted to do, and my Head Chef was still tired when he got up. It was still 7:00 and Fred, the contractor we're using to work on the house, wasn't due for another hour, so I upgraded the computer in the living room and Head Chef hung out and napped next to me on the couch with Enzo and Bella and Popoki. I ran the upgrades and then even played the game for a little while during our wait for Fred.

I got some decent pointers from Head Chef on how to play even better, as well as my 25th level. Yay. I like Mormodes, the Shaman. He's a cool dude, and he's powerful when forced to do things on his own. But he's still got a soft side and needs his druid, Kapok, because he just can't do it all himself. Who can, you know?

Fred arrived about an hour late, so we got him set up and then headed out to the beach. We weren't sure which beach we would go to, but we ended up deciding to go Waimanalo beach (say it: Why man ah low). We spent an hour or two on the beach, napping and talking. I enjoyed the sun and Head Chef's presence, and I let my hand rest against his side as we lay there silently.

The beach in Waimanalo is perfect. Wide and bright with just enough surf and never very many people. I'm always nervous about getting in the water there, but I didn't see any jelly fish washed up on the shore, so we went in and of course it was fantastic. The waves there are very fun and once you're in, the water temperature is really comfortable. We bobbed in the waves for a while and watched a turbo prop plane in the distance silently performing aerial acrobatics. And then as we were climbing out of the water, we spotted not one, but two jellies on the beach. But we didn't get stung, so that's what counts, right?

When we got home a bit after 1:00pm, Fred had made a lot of progress on hanging the new door, but he had to completely rebuild the entire frame because the old door and frame were custom but awful. It had been a non-trivial job, for sure, but it looked good. Head Chef and I hung out and helped a little, talked with Fred about the changes he was making, and then surfed the web looking for a new doorbell ringer and thinking about design for the kitchen.

When Fred got the door hung, it was time to tear the kitchen cabinets off the wall he's going to remove for us, so we helped him to hold stuff and move the cabinet pieces outside. Head Chef was really excited. You could see the energy in his eyes in the way one can... As more and more cabinetry disappeared, he was starting to see the kitchen finished in his mind's eye, and his imagination wouldn't let him leave the room for a while. Fred had a couple of beers while he chatted with Head Chef about other plans they're going to work on. Finishing the flooring, replacing the stairs, and adding windows.

Head Chef's plan is to have it done when I get back. Knowing him, I'll be very impressed.

I busied myself with getting ready for dinner and making sure that everything was in place for my departure the next morning. And then Cindy showed up looking for the package I had brought back for her from Utah. She's my co-worker's wife, and she was nothing like I had pictured her. It was kindof awkward and so we hurriedly exchanged our items. Her husband's package went with her, and the shirt I was to bring back to Utah with me went into my carry-on bag for the next day.

Finally, Grillardin showed up and it was time to go to dinner. We had chosen to go to Gyu Kaku, a fun Japanese barbecue place that we knew Grillardin hadn't been to and would love. She's new to the island and needs to be shown around a bit, so we took her out for an "E komo mai" dinner, and naturally, she loved it. I leaned forward and reminded Head Chef, "Boulanger's going to LOVE this place," and he heartily agreed. Everything was delicious, including the yakidori dessert. I was content.

But I had a plan, and we couldn't linger to savor the sensation of full bellies. So we headed down into Waikiki to catch the movie on the beach. They never play old classics like "Some Like It Hot," so I was kindof excited to check it out. We got a great area in front of the big screen, and from observation of others, learned a new technique for digging into the sand and getting comfortable. We drank pre-mixed cocktails while the sun was setting. The Honolulu Jazz All-Stars performed magnificently from the movie screen stage, and we agreed that everything was better when enjoyed in the light of a Honolulu sunset.

When darkness set and the movie started, Head Chef nudged me out of sleep. I was still on mountain time, and it was nearly midnight according to my body clock. I watched Jack Lemmon for a while before my eyes closed and Head Chef woke me again. And after a third time, Grillardin volunteered that she was tired, too, so we gathered our empties and our beach mat and headed for the car. I was all yawns and when Grillardin dropped us off, I had only enough energy to stack my items near my bag and curl up next to Head Chef.

He wanted to chat as we lay in bed, but I must've fallen asleep in mid-sentence at some point. He said something that woke me, and I opened my eyes and he smiled before turning off the light. He has such a nice smile.

Now it's Sunday, and I'm back on the plane on my way to San Francisco to catch my connecting flight to Salt Lake City. All my friends from the area - and many from Honolulu, Portland, Seattle, Texas, and elsewhere - are finishing a week-long camping trip/binge in Guerneville, not far from The City. I've heard from many of them, and it sounds like they're having a good time. Head Chef and I will plan well ahead, and we'll meet them there next year.

Head Chef and Fred are going to tear down the wall today and finish some touch-up work that needs to be done on the new front door - which looks beautiful, by the way. I begged Head Chef to send me pictures, but he wants the new lofted second level to be a surprise for me. Already, the suspense is killing me.

I won't arrive in Salt Lake until almost 8:00pm. My co-worker, The Butcher Commis, has said he'll pick me up, so I won't have to take a taxi down to Provo. Hopefully the air quality will be better in Utah Valley this week. I'm supposed to have a better hotel room for this next stay, too. Much more like the condos in Waikiki.

In the meantime, I've been listening to the new Coldplay album while I work on the plane. I only have a few albums on the computer to listen to, but this one is a gem. I might never have heard it if it weren't for my friend Tournant, who shared with me one of the two finest tracks on the album. And now I listen to the track and think of the people I'm so far away from, and think about how... I don't know - accurate - it is.

Behind The Choice Claim

2005-05-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

After all these years and despite scientific evidence to the contrary, anti-gay extremists still base their positions on sexuality-related issues on their belief that homosexuality is a choice. They believe it very fervently, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will dissuade them. In recent weeks, I’ve stumbled across various pieces of literature that have helped me get inside the head of the anti-gay activist. To understand, even if I cannot agree.

Poor Mayor Jim West of Spokane has struggled with sexuality issues his entire life, it would seem. Even if the allegations of predatory sexual abuse of boys aren’t true – we may never know either way – it would seem he’s spent a career profiting off of what closet cases do best. Denial. In the eighties, he was one of the most vociferous anti-gay voices in Washington State and had a brief abortive marriage to a woman. Now, the guy has been caught having virtual sex with young men over the internet. With his hypocrisy now laid bare, he is suffering demonstrably.

Jim West’s story has been potent for me, in no small part because of the luridness of the detail with which it has been told. I never had to deal with the denial Jim did because I came out as a relatively young man. But Jim – well, he was in law enforcement, then political office. A conservative man, he couldn’t even come out to himself, and reacted against what he felt was wrong with him, voicing his self-loathing as a public position against others like him. And as the classic scenario goes, we find him coming out at the age of 54, struggling and embattled, as conflicted with himself as ever.

Neil Horsley was on the Alan Colmes show on the Fox Radio Network twice during the past couple of weeks. If you’re not familiar with Neil’s work, he’s an aggressive anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-everything Christian extremist who has a lot of opinions about just about everything. And he’s an expert on sexuality, it turns out, due to his experiences with men and mules alike. Yes, I said mules. On the Alan Colmes show, he said he’d have even had sex with a watermelon or a washing machine under the right circumstances.

Neil has found god, of course, and so he condemns all that which he once enjoyed because the Lord doesn’t approve. I can’t say I approve of sex with things other than humans, either. However, in reading about Neil and the prevalence of bestiality, I learned that about %13 percent of men have had sex with an animal at some point. That was a big surprise to me, and it validated Neil’s assertion that sex with farm animals is actually common.

Reading Jim’s story and hearing Neil talk, I found myself thinking about sexuality and choice, and how it fit for these two men. Both have had sex with men, and both have dealt with it in different ways. Neil appears to have chosen to abstain from sex with men, animals, vegetables, and machinery for religious reasons. Barring contrary evidence, we can only assume he has been successful. Jim, however, has tried to be with women and failed. He’s acknowledged that he seeks men for sex and engages in romantic discussions with them online.

To me, this fits perfectly with Kinsey’s continuum of human sexuality. Jim is predominantly attracted to men. Like me, Jim may be a five out of six on Kinsey’s scale, indicating that he is almost exclusively attracted to men for sexual relationships, and is only incidentally heterosexual. What is currently known about his relationship history supports this assertion.

Neil, on the other hand, may be a two or a one on the Kinsey scale. He’s had sex with men, and so he obviously finds them sexually attractive at least part of the time. This excludes him from being classified as a zero on the scale, the point for a person who is exclusively heterosexual.

Obviously, then, both men are attracted to both sexes, albeit to different degrees. And they did not choose this for themselves. Most likely, both would have chosen to fall onto the Kinsey scale at the zero point. But both have had to make a choice as to whether to honor their natural tendencies or to suppress them. For Neil, this might simply have been like turning down chocolate for someone who only likes to have it once in a while. Neil’s choice to give up men may have been an easy one.

For Jim, however, his sexual attraction toward men was too strong to deny. He tried for many years because social mores and his own beliefs told him he should, but he was unable to succeed. Jim clearly struggled with his options for a lifetime, and ultimately decided that he could not suppress his innate sexuality.

Both men did choose, based on the sexuality they developed. Neil chose to lead a straight life and Jim chose a gay, albeit closeted and contradictory, one.

Neil and Jim are interesting because they represent voices opposed to societal acceptance of homosexuality despite their own histories. According to Kinsey’s research, they are among the roughly 60% of young men who have a homosexual experience or relationship during their youth. But if only four to six percent of them turn out to be gay, what happens to the rest?

Presumably, most find that gay sex is not as satisfying to them as relationships with women. But that’s no different from discovering that you prefer chocolate over vanilla. The choice is easy if you have a clear preference. But they carry that memory. And in the context of strong social mores against homosexuality, they attribute their experiences and resulting choices to their own strength of character, or to the wisdom and influence of their God.

The rest – those like Jim – make a choice to be less happy. They take vanilla, even though they’d prefer – through no choice of their own - chocolate. Perhaps even if they hate vanilla, they’ll deny themselves the happiness that only chocolate could bring.

The “Yes or No,” “True or False,” “Black or White” crowd would say that I am in essence agreeing with my Christian adversaries, but they’re wrong because the underlying preference for male or female is never a choice. And so the key to my understanding of their perspective is that, statistically, men who claim that being gay is a choice think they know first hand because they themselves have made that same choice. They just never say it. And they don’t disclose their classification on the Kinsey scale, either.

My father occasionally repeats his advice to me when I’m facing a dilemma. “Make the choice that will increase your happiness,” he says. Given that Jim and I are fives on the scale, the choice that will make us happiest is to be with men. We did not choose to be fives, but we did have to choose between acknowledging our nature and suppressing it. To different degrees, we made the choice that increased our happiness.

Anyone who asks someone to reconsider their choice, more than half the time, is asking him or her to make a choice they themselves have already made. One that was either easy for them, or makes them unhappy. And it’s funny how so many of them seem so very unhappy. Makes me think that misery really does love company.

Fixing Marriage Once And For All

2005-05-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

Just about everybody seems to agree that marriage is broken. Progressives see it as discriminatory by design, inappropriately regulated by the government, or too limiting to encompass the full spectrum of loving commitment between people. Conservatives see it as plagued by divorce born of temptation and vice, under siege by sinners who wish to disgrace it, and not defended or supported ardently enough by governmental bodies. Just about everybody seems to have an opinion.

One of the key assertions currently being used by conservatives to argue their perspective in the media, courts, and legislatures, is that marriage is a sacred institution designed to create children. That the one man, one woman tradition and federal and state recognition, protections, and responsibilities they wish to have exclusive access to are justified by the Nation’s interest in promoting the rearing of new generations.

Frankly, I don’t have any way to dispute this. But I was raised thinking that marriage was about love, not procreation. As such, I feel that the contemporary function of marriage is to bond with a chosen mate for life more than it is to rear offspring. However, I recognize that the health of economies is tied closely to population growth rates. And so beyond my own personal belief that marriage’s function is for acknowledging love rather than creating a support structure for child rearing, I can’t really argue against conservatives on that particular point.

(Of course, I also think that birth rates in the US might actually go up if marriage were abolished. While the quality of child rearing might also drop, I imagine the value to our economy of a population surge would outweigh any dip in deficits in child upbringing.)

Despite this, I still feel that current marriage laws unfairly discriminate against gays and lesbians. Nowhere in marriage laws does it state that marriage is defined for purposes of raising children. Furthermore, lots of heterosexual couples get married with absolutely no intent of birthing or adopting a single child. Not one. So where’s the equity there? Marriage is for raising children, but people who never intend to have kids can reap the benefits? Aren’t they abusing a loophole in the system, in that case? They’re taking advantage of benefits designed to support those raising children without contributing to society as expected, and this puts an undue burden on legitimately married people, singles, and couples that cannot be married.

My thinking on this matter has brought me to the point at which I feel I can propose a reasonable solution:

Marriage is defined as a union of no more than two persons who are primarily responsible for the rearing of at least one child, for the duration that children are dependent, and no longer. All marriages performed prior to the conception, adoption, or other acquisition of a child for rearing are void. All marriages persisting past the termination of child dependency are also terminated. This law is retroactively effective on all current marriages one year from its passage and all those henceforth.

That may be harsh but it’s totally fair. If marriage and all benefits of marriage are for the purpose of raising children, then this protects all couples raising children, regardless of whom they are, for the duration of the dependency of the children. This means that both John and Mary and John and Mark can get married if they’re raising a child, and they are assured of all the protections of marriage for the duration of their parenting.

And yes, this means that both couples’ marriages terminate when the bouncing babies grow up (unless they’re dependent for life due to various factors) or die. Remember, the benefits of marriage are there for supporting the rearing of children. Love alone is not justification for government benefits, and 18 years worth of tax breaks, hiring preferences, and special treatment aught to be enough reward. Thank you for your service, Parents, but your service is complete.

Not only does this ensure that marriage is conferred only on those who really need it, it prevents the abuses of the system that are currently rampant. Childless couples – even those who are infertile through no fault of their own, unfortunately – do not deserve the assistance of the government that couples with children have earned.

Of course, we could always set up civil unions for childless couples, but those would be mostly for feel-good purposes and the assignment of power of attorney in medical and financial matters associated with death or disability. Childless couples don’t deserve any more protection than that, and they shouldn’t have it.

Unless, of course, everybody can get in on the action.

Enforcing Religious Pluralism

2005-04-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

I’m all for Freedom Of Religion. Truly. It seems to me that if I want to be a Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim, Scientologist, Atheist, or Christian, that I should be able to do so freely, and without restraint. I should not be punished for my beliefs, and I should not be forced to suffer discrimination by governmental agencies that prefer a particular belief structure over the one I hold.

This is pretty simple, I think. Freedom of religion is about honoring all beliefs that we variously call religion, spirituality, or lack thereof. It’s about respecting every individual’s means of explaining their existence in terms of that great Other and answering those questions about Why and How.

It baffles me that some people don’t understand this respect, and feel that their particular set of beliefs should be enshrined in law and displayed everywhere in public at the expense of others. This strikes me as being an example of lessons from childhood that were not well learned.

Sharing, see, is important. Not just in pre-school, and not just on the playground. We teach children how to share because sharing is vital to the operation and survival of communities. Without individuals who can share, communities become conflicted and fail.

Separations of church and state as well as freedom of religion are about equal access and freedom to practice our religion, even if that religion is complete rejection of everything outside of our corporeal existence. But the concept of separation of church and state enforces that freedom by acknowledging that there are many religions, and that they cannot all be reasonably represented everywhere. As a result, all religion is banned from promotion via public funds because to promote one religion would be unfair to those who practice any other. It’s a tactic that has angered a lot of Christians for decades.

It wouldn’t have to be that way, of course. But for it to work, individuals and communities would have to be willing to share their space, time, and resources with others who may not practice their particular canon. And that sharing works both ways, because in some places in this country, Christians are the minority, not the majority. Freedom of religion is a concept created to allow them to practice without discrimination or fear.

When the Alabama Supreme Court forced a judge to take down a tablet of the Ten Commandments from public property, there was an incredible uproar. During that time, I watched a video of a man completely overcome, yelling and screaming, “Put it back! Put it back” till he could hardly stand.

I remember watching the video, listening to him repeat himself over and over, and thinking to myself, “Poor guy.” The man was so overwrought that even his fellow protesters were asking him to calm down, but he was so aggrieved as to be inconsolable. He swayed on his feet like he was about to lose consciousness due to blood loss.

But I would not have put the tablets back. However, I would have offered to share. All I ask is for equal representation. Indeed, if the Ten Commandments belong on public property, so do the guiding principles of every single faith in the country. So had I been in a position to bargain with the man who was overcome by the loss of the Ten Commandments, I would have proposed the following rule:

When concepts of faith, religion, or spirituality of any sort are described, displayed, taught, or are otherwise made available using Federal, State, or other public funds, equal representation of all other faiths practiced within the community serviced by the entity must also be present, in an order determined by audited, witnessed lottery.

In addition, entities that engage in any faith-related activities using public funds must publicly designate and maintain personnel responsible for support of faith presentation, and these personnel must be readily available to accept public input. If any two individuals residing within the community (regardless of relation) request the addition of the guiding principles of their belief system, the entity must make all accommodations necessary to complete equal presentation of the requestors’ faith within one calendar year of the written request’s submission.

Entities must fund adjustments to faith presentations through their own budgets, and are authorized to request voter-approved taxation, including taxation of community churches, to support the maintenance of religious presentation.

For the purpose of ensuring fairness in faith representation, the Federal Government will establish the National Bureau Of Equitable Religion And Faith Presentation and will designate personnel in all postal offices who will accept public comment for oversight of local faith presentation. The Bureau will act in an administrative function to support the direction of community complaints to the National Faith Presentation Review Court, comprised of a single representative of each major religion and faith nationwide. Funding for this Bureau will be provided by a national sales tax on items of religious or spiritual nature. This tax will be implemented and enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.

Complaints regarding unequal representation of community beliefs may be submitted jointly or separately by any two individuals within the community (regardless of relation). Entities that fail to provide equal representation of faith in placement, content, and accessibility in the judgment of the Court are required to remove all representation within three months of a guilty verdict. No exceptions are made for space, time, or funding constraints. All entities that fail to comply will be subject to withdrawal of federal funds during the following quarter, Bureau intervention and subsequent presentation removal, or both.

I doubt that the man screaming to Put It Back would have agreed to my compromise. But it would address many issues with the current situation. Yes, it would eliminate some of the aspects of the separation of church and state, but it would encourage the celebration of freedom of religion, rather than prohibiting religious expression altogether. In addition, it would clarify that Atheism, so derided as “freedom from religion” is also a fully valid religion, too. Whether they were the majority or minority, every religion with unique practices could be ensured equal time and validation in schools, parks, public buildings, and any public venue that used public resources to discuss faith. Furthermore, funding for all of this is borne by the religious community as a whole, sharing the burden of protecting freedom of religion equally.

If my proposal is adopted, Christian beliefs can be placed on display in courts, schools, and agencies of all types and Christians can know that their beliefs are protected and guaranteed fair representation, just like Muslim, Wiccan, Hindu, Atheist, Rajneesh, and Satanic principles are. When this proposal is implemented, separation of church and state, while still important for legislative matters, will no longer impose limits upon the public display and practice of faith in America.

Repeat Offenders

2005-02-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

One of the peculiar things about being a haole here in Hawai`i is that I am a foreigner. Frankly, most people here are, but it's only a few generations ago this island really did belong to the Hawai`ian people who arrived thousands of years ago. They had their own language and culture, and it was wonderful, unique, beautiful, and even cruel.

But of course, the white men took it. We take a lot of things. Like North America, or South Africa, or Hong Kong. We're conquerors. It's nothing personal, it's just how we are. Everybody else does it too, we've just historically been the best at it. And besides, if the Polynesian people who live here now didn't speak English, they'd be speaking Japanese, right?

You know what? None of that makes it OK. Really, it doesn't. Saying "Oh, well, somebody else would have done it if we hadn't" doesn't make the Trail of Tears OK, and it doesn't make the overthrow of Lili`u`okalani all better, either.

Head Chef and I and a cadre of other haole friends had the (oddly) rare occasion to hang out with a man the other night who is half Samoan and half Hawai`ian, and he was a beautiful, gentle person who embodied Aloha. He blessed us in the ocean, and told us not to worry about the Hawai`ian people, as they'd be just fine.

And of course, he's right. Hawai`ian blood may be diluted now, and the culture may have gone through astonishingly rapid change over the past one hundred years, but the people are still here. Still here, in the form of men like him, gently or even sometimes not-so-gently reminding us that we're blessed to be here, but that they were here first. And letting us feel welcome anyway.

No Votes For Renters

2005-02-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

It's an interesting experience being the target of the President’s Hate Of The Union Address. It gives me a sick feeling and makes me angry - it makes me doubt the greatness of this country, and drapes everything else the USA does in shades of selfishness and harm. I don’t feel like a threat to the nation, and I don’t see how my would-be-husband is a threat, either. And so I can’t understand how our successful, loving relationship is worthy of changing the Constitution to discriminate against us, unless that action is based solely on hate, greed, and, fear.

I guess I shouldn’t feel too singled out or shocked about it – arguably less despotic men than George Bush still engage in genocidal binges from time to time, and black men are still lynched in the South. But it still hurts, knowing that I am so hated by so much of America that while the rest of the world acknowledges my human rights, this country’s President can get away with pedaling discrimination in front of Congress. I can’t imagine another scenario in which Bush could advocate for blatant hate-based discrimination without facing immediate impeachment.

I mean, really, can you imagine if he’d said that the nation needs to revoke inheritance rights for widows, or voting rights for people who don’t own land? Or that Latinos should be denied access to public education? He’d be immediately censured by Congress and demanded to resign. He would go down in history as a horrible embarrassment and an example of what to never, ever do. But stand up in front of television cameras and say that my partner and I don’t deserve the same rights as widows, renters, and Latinos, and that’s just fine. That’s just public discourse.

I realize it’s a rallying cry and something that the Republicans are using to “energize their base,” but if it is successful, it also heralds the end of the great American experiment. The President’s Amendment, not two men building a stable home and a loving family together, is the single greatest threat to what it means to be the United States of America, and what it means to say “I am an American.” Because if he is successful, it will mean that America is no longer the beacon of freedom.

And you’d think someone who invokes freedom so much would realize that.

Signs

2005-01-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

If you like, you may choose to accept some events in your life as a sort of foreshadow – a real-world prediction of things to come. I think most of us probably do at some level once in a while. I know I do, although sometimes I’m not sure that I believe in omens as much as I entertain the idea as a form of amusement.

Sometimes, a phone call might come just at the moment I needed it most, or an unseasonably warm day appears and I think to myself, “wow, now that’s a good sign.” And maybe it is, I don’t know. But I think that a life can be full of these signs if we like, or virtually devoid of them. And I don’t know which is better, or if there is such a thing as better, really. In the big picture, I’m not sure better exists or if it is even relevant.

I should tell you that I am the protector of some things. Some things such as my home, my career, my reputation. I protect my wonderful little bear in the ways I can. My sister. And other things, like my childhood memory of lying on the floor in my parent’s home, watching particles of dust stand almost-still in a brilliant beam of sunlight.

I have accepted the responsibility for protecting these things from this dirty and dangerous world, and sometimes I have an opportunity to enhance them – to relive that instant of tranquility I captured so vividly that afternoon when I was eight. To promote my loved ones, to advance my career.

And once in a while, I fail. My sister once entrusted me with a handful of precious items, and I let her down. An orchid died. A box full of her lost son’s belongings became mildewed in my basement.

I have, however, managed to keep that promise to her in one respect. Quinn’s orchid – the other plant she left with me, the one with the dancing yellow butterfly blossoms – lives on. Like Quinn did, it has suffered terribly, and recovered, and suffered again. The move to Hawai`i was hard on all of us, including the plants. Many died outright. But Quinn’s orchid survived, and even bloomed. It’s now come with us to the funky new house in green little Pauoa valley.

But only recently have I actually taken conscious note of an important thing at the new house. Sitting to one side of the rock and concrete retaining walls in my back yard is a patch of Quinn’s orchid growing wild in a rocky crevice. Growing there, three feet long and a foot wide, wild and free for years now, going through its seasonal cycles without regard of people in the house below.

The wild patch of Quinn’s orchid is getting ready to flower. Just now, as we’re settling in, long, still-unbranched spikes two and three feet long arc out of the bush. In a few weeks, we’ll have dancing yellow butterflies. It’s been a wet year, and I expect a good show.

Many things about this house tell me that it will be a home to me, and that I will love it. Its funky “fix me” look, the quiet and friendly neighborhood, the sizeable yard. But I haven’t taken any of that as a sign.

I have chosen, however, to be honored by the welcome of Quinn’s orchid growing wild on an inhospitable rock. And I can't help but think there's an omen in there, that the metaphor for the delicate yet persistant orchid growing on a rock portends of good, good things.

After all, what could be a better sign than dancing yellow butterflies.

The Bad With The Good

2005-01-12T13:50:00.000-08:00

I've been wrestling with what bothers me about missing the good ole days. And it's been a real challenge to me to try to figure out why the necessarily regressive politics of "the way it used to be" bother me so extensively.

Today, though, I had an epiphany.

The good ole days weren't just good, actually. They were great. You could leave your door unlocked, you didn't have to worry about the artificial ingredients in your food, and the commute - if there was one - was almost certainly short unless you were a traveling salesman. Your wife could cook, and she did almost every single night.

These days, though, everything's bad for you. Name it, right? You can't eat it 'cause it's bad for you. Under no circumstances would you leave your home unlocked while you're away. And if you're walking alone at night, you've got your hand clenched around your keys just in case you need to jab some attacker in the ribs. Even if you're a man. Right guys?

Seriously, the good old days were great. Who wouldn't want the kind of security that justified leaving the door unlocked just in case the neighbor needed to borrow your shotgun?

My problem, however, is polio. White breeder males seem to have forgotten about polio. My father and mother and many people just a handful of years my senior bear those distinctive polio vaccination scars. It looks like it was probably a doozy of a wound. But white men seem to have forgotten about polio. Must be like childbirth, I guess.

See, polio struck white men. Plenty of them. And although they got to perform the lynchings while they kept their wives at home, they contracted polio just like everyone who wasn't a Caucasian male. So you'd think they might not be quite so nostalgic for the way things were. Because polio was a royal bitch. And that's just for starters.

So, I say give the old white heterosexual men what they want. They want the good old days back, and are willing to sell everything and anyone to get them. And why shouldn't they? The days they long for were kind to them.

We can segregate the schools and busses, bring back prayer in schools, prosecute gays for congregating, and forbid women from voting, just for good measure. 'Cause you know how uppity they can get.

But the dirty sons of bitches better take back polio, too. Cause there ain't nothing in this world that's free, boys.

Ka Makani

2005-01-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the significance of being here.

This place embodies so much of what is beautiful about humanity and the planet Earth. And as such things go, it also carries with it a burden of sadness and excruciating loss. Amazingly, these two aspects are inextricably linked.

To avoid being completely overcome, I have to tell myself that Hawai`i’s land, people, and culture are beautiful right now, in so many ways. That these things are unique and wonderful in their own right. And that what will come will come, and that I am lucky to be here in this moment.

If you have a broadband connection, I highly recommend listening to what I've come to think of as the only standard for Hawai`ian radio. Listen to Ka Makani at http://breezeofhawaii.com and click on their “Listen Now” link.

Admittedly, some of it is cheesy. But some of it makes me write things like this. I have never in my life been exposed to so much celebration of place like I have here. The music of the kama`aina is unabashed in its love for these islands, and it is remarkably affirming. So much so that I find Hawai`ian is suddenly my favorite musical genre.

Why Gays Don’t Like Christmas.

2004-12-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

Over the phone on Christmas morning, I can hear the stifled laughter in my sister’s voice. She knows the answer, but she asks the question anyway and she can’t wait for me to hear the punch line. She is high. Why, she asks, don’t gays like Christmas?

Well, obviously plenty of us like it, even a little too much. All the decoration and shopping are a ready draw to the stereotypical homo. The opportunity to be fabulous is too good to resist, and the season of sparkly lights, fur coats, and musical numbers is a perfect excuse. I mean, really. What could be more glorious than to wear nothing but a pair of red velvet hotpants, a Santa hat, and white fur handcuffs on the holiest day of the entire Christian year? It’s definitely something to be Merry about.

Still, my sister says, contemporary gays aren’t as stereotypical as they once were, and come Christmas, we’re just not very merry.

Admittedly, she may have a point. Excuses aside, Head Chef and I did nothing for ourselves for Christmas, save for the handful of obligatory parties. We neither exchanged gifts nor made a feast. We mocked the Frat House when a tree, beautiful though it was, showed up one day. A friend even sat home with his boyfriend and watched movies and ate – get this – Burritos. Seriously. So it’s easy to see how the next great stereotype of the homosexual is that we hate Christmas. And honestly, many do.

But my sister’s theory as to why is wonderful. Gays are generally happy, she says. We party a lot, we have close groups of friends, and our careers go through the roof. We enjoy life to it’s fullest, goes her reasoning, and we even describe ourselves with a word that is synonymous with merry.

And that little semantic bit is the crux of her argument. How can someone be more merry if essential happiness is an integral part of his identity? It can’t be done, because we’re already so damned happy and gay that additional gaiety would simply be overload. Thus we cannot love Christmas.

Obviously, there are ample opportunities to shoot holes in her amusing theory. But there may also be a shred of truth to it. If so, I think I just might choose to believe.

Why Homophobia Will Kill Straight People

2004-12-28T14:14:00.000-08:00

I read a couple of articles recently that put me in this frame of mind.

Men who have sex with men have been in the news lately. They’re MSMs, called this because they engage in sex with other men but don’t think of themselves as gay or even bisexual. Turns out that people who aren’t “out” tend to have more unprotected sex than those who can comfortably talk about their activities. So then, homophobia and other forces that keep MSMs in their closets act to encourage the spread of HIV.

And this is reason number one why homophobia will kill straight people.

Picture yourself as John Nobody, a guy who’s been brought up in an atmosphere where gays are bad. Suppose (just for argument’s sake) that regardless of how you feel for women, John, you also have an interest in other men. But gays are bad. What do you do? Do you lie to your family, friends, and co-workers and tell them you’re straight? Yes, you do. Do follow tradition and marry a woman? Yes. Yes you do. And do you stop having sex with men?

Well, see, that’s a point of debate. But if you asked a straight man to give up women, you might encounter resistance. So some men, regardless of whether or not they date women, date men too. These closeted men have sex with other men and keep it on the down-low, or L.D., meaning they keep it quiet. This suits a lot of people just fine.

But let’s keep in mind that in keeping their relationships with men on the L.D, they’re also staying in the closet. Statistically, this means that they’re more likely to engage in riskier sexual behaviors than the stereotypical party boy or the nice gay couple that lives down the street. And if they contract HIV, they’re likely to pass it to the women they have sex with. Not just other MSMs, but wives, girlfriends, etc.

Scary. But why would they take those chances? Lots of reasons. Low self-esteem, lack of information. Because Mom and Dad, FOX News, and President Bush are very happy to talk about what’s wrong with gays. These guys end up in so much denial they don’t even think of themselves as anything but straight. In turn, because it’s associated with the gay stigma, these men strategically avoid the very information that could keep them safe.

Reason number two why homophobia will kill straight people. Oh, but see, it doesn’t even end there. Don’t you wish it did? But it doesn’t.

Recently, Gareth Thomas, U.K. Minister for Development, linked anti-gay lyrics in songs with a heightened public dislike for gay people. Further, he says, since everybody knows AIDS is a gay disease, heterosexuals and others give HIV testing a wide berth, refusing to test for something that carries the stigma of homosexuality.

Reason number three.

The circle, as you see, is complete. Focus On The Family teaches people that gays are aberrant, and so closet cases are born. Closet non-heterosexuals engage in risky behavior because they don’t have the information they need to avoid disease and/or because of low self esteem, and become infected. The infected persons continue to play the heterosexual role because they are expected to, but tell no one of their activities and infect their opposite-sex partners. And no one gets tested because of the stigma of homosexuality and belief that AIDS is a gay disease. They, in turn, spread HIV to their other heterosexual partners, and so forth. And voila! AIDS is not a gay disease any more, but instead a heterosexual disease that is spread because the social environment vilifies gays.

I hate to invoke the word justice, but when the fruits of your own misdeeds hurt you, I do think that’s what it’s called.

What’s the lesson for straight people? Encourage gays to come out, support them for who they are, and show no tolerance whatsoever for your peers who don’t. Because perpetuating the current cycle will only make victims of you, your friends, or your children regardless of whether they’re gay or not.

House!

2004-12-27T14:01:00.000-08:00

Head Chef and I have developed a code word for our mutual excitement over the pending acquisition of Our Very Own Hawai’ian House 1.0. Well, it’s more commonly a code phrase, but it’s simple enough to be just one word, or a whole sentence. It started by me gently ribbing his excitement, but ultimately it’s become just another exclamation and we’re both using it to describe our enthusiasm.

It’s sortof like the sentence one can say in Mandarin using only the word "ma." Really, I’m not kidding, I looked it up. It’s "mama ma ma ma man," and it means, "Mom curses the hemp horse for being slow."

Admittedly, Chinese is a more fully realized language. Head Chef and I have only been speaking in code about our house acquisition for a couple of weeks to a month, give or take. I’m not arrogant enough to think that he and I, formidable though our combined intellect may be, are capable of besting the efforts of millions Mandarin speakers over the course of thousands of generations. Our code simply isn’t up to the task of describing mother’s ire over the speed of the pakalolo pony.

Although, let's be honest. If it were sluggish, Mother's frustration would be warranted.

Still, our code is quite adequate for describing the sense of satisfaction of finding the perfect cabinets for the kitchen. Nothing says it better than "house house house." Nor is anything more well-suited to expressing the elation of realizing that we will finally be able to garden again than a simple "house house house house house." But most frequently, "house house house house house house house" is simply the easiest, most efficient way to put into words the eager anticipation we both feel for having our own home again, making something beautiful together, and for being proud of our home and our accomplishments.

Aged though their culture may be, I don’t think even the Chinese could describe it more eloquently.

House house house house house house house house house!