Archive for October 11, 2006

Relational Rights

October 11, 2006 / / 4 comments

Per Shakes, today is National Coming Out Day. Shakes posted a list of reasons why she, a straight woman, is so fierce an advocate for gay rights. I want to add my own.

Gay rights are my rights. Yours too.

If gay rights aren’t a reality, we’re voting “yes” on standardized sexuality; on forcing all of us to goosestep to a sexual norm. And I may not be gay, but I ain’t normal.

Is anyone? (Actually, yes, some people are.) Most of us like a little kink, or have strolled into the forbidden zone. Few of us want to be confined by a bunch of heterosexual rules that expand like housework to fill the space allotted them.

Gay rights are human rights. They are relational rights. They are our rights no matter who we are.

Halloween is coming

October 11, 2006 / / 14 comments

So is Samhain, but I’m not talking here about the Celtic Day of the Dead, or the honoring of the Ancestors, or any of that religious stuff.

I’m talking about costumes.

My office has a come-in-costume tradition. The only such office I’ve ever worked in. I have no idea where I was in 2004; in 2005 I was in Tennessee, so this will be my first Halloween with the costume crew.

What to wear, what to wear.

I made a kickass pirate at Starwood, but I’m thinking gypsy. It’s almost the same as a pirate except a skirt instead of pants and I don’t have to say “Matey.” Which is an advantage. Plus I have massive gold ring earrings.

What are you wearing (and to where)?

Bubba and the Comedian

October 11, 2006 / / 2 comments

So about six weeks ago I saw this standup comic while I was on a cruise. The crowd was mostly African-American. (Actually, it was too dark to see the crowd, but when he said “How many sistahs are here?” he got a huge round of me! me! type applause. Definitely a majority.)

So he does a Dubya joke. He gets a weak laugh, maybe half the crowd or less, and a smattering of boos. Then he starts to do a Clinton joke (by which I mean, he gets as far as “Well, at least Clinton isn’t President anymore, he…”). A huge eruption of booing. I mean, stop in your tracks, can’t finish your joke kind of booing.

I guess it’s true what they say about Big Dog being the first black President of the U.S. I tell you, it was heart-warming.

 
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