Husband Material

The other day, a business associate called and, as is our custom, we chit-chatted for about 10 minutes prior to getting to the point of her call. See, she’s originally from the Jersey Shore and now lives in San Francisco, so she has this fantastic East Coast mentality with West Coast energy-thing, which I find both interesting and friendly. Having worked together for a number of years, she always asks how Rufus and CawfeeMate are doing, and refers to him as my “partner”; CawfeeMate, not Rufus.

Let me be honest (‘cuz, y’know, I’ve been lying this whole time): of all the ways that one could refer to CawfeeMate, “partner” is one of my least favorite (behind “special friend” and “roommate”); by now, most of you know that words matter to me. When I hear the word “partner” I think of two things: 70’s/80’s cop shows like Cagney and Lacey and Starsky & Hutch, where you were bound to hear one refer to the other as their partner when talking to a third party and Bewitched where Darren worked for McMahon and Tate; we always saw Larry Tate, but never his partner, _____ McMahon*. I’m a child of the TV generation; sue me.

Anyway, the point I’m driving at is this: to me, “partner” is such an emotionless and clinical term for a relationship; it purports that the relationship would not be there if the two people weren’t working towards a common goal and removes all romantic connotations. Even the alternatives provided by the MS Word Thesaurus sound decidedly unromantic (“associate”, “colleague”, “cohort”, “equal”, and “co-worker”). While one might certainly argue the homo-erotic subtext found in both Cagney and Lacey and Starsky & Hutch, the relationships were work related. That’s not my relationship with CawfeeMate; he’s my husband. Emotionally, spiritually and legally.

Knit Wit

(the odds of this post actually being witty are pretty slim, as it's monday morning, but i was at a loss for an adequate title)


this weekend, MS and Dug dropped by for an afternoon of facetime...which turned into a weekend of facetime which was alot better than just an afternoon. while Dug and i played Lego Batman on the Wii, MS finished knitting a hat for a young lady (and sometimes model) she happens to know. totally inspired by how great the hat was coming out, i told her that i'd been thinking of learning to knit*, and (in true MS fashion) she jumped at the idea of teaching me.

the next morning, over pancakes and coffee, she sat me down on the couch and commenced the Basics of Knitting. She took it slowly and taught me to "cast on", the "knit stitch", "the purl stitch" and "casting off". in about an hour i had two small rectangles of knitted wool and a belly full of ambition. half an hour later, i walked out of A.C, Moore, $20 lighter, but with my very own set of bamboo knitting needles and some lovely blue wool/acrylic yarn. Visions of scarves, hats, sweaters and gloves for my friends and family filled my head! We returned to my house, kissed, hugged and parted ways. the huz and i then went to the supermarket for the weekly shopping. an hour or two later, i finally sat down to turn out my 1st scarf, in a lovely shade of blue.

i sat there staring at the needles and yarn for, like, 20 minutes. i'd completely forgotten how to "cast on". eventually it clicked, and i was golden. for 30 seconds.

I couldn't figure out how to make the 1st knit stitch. rather than stare blankly for another twenty minutes, I went online and found a YouTube tutorial "the knit stitch". that was fine, for an hour, until I wound up with an extra stitch and couldn't figure out how or why or how to undo what I'd been doing without unraveling everything. this time i sat, dumbly, for only ten minutes before realizing that i had no idea how to "unknit" something. the scarf was unraveled.

hit Ctrl+Alt+delete and start over.

the entire process lasted several hours; the remainder of the afternoon, into the late evening: knitting, screwing up, do-over. i was fine. i was a beginner and destined to fuck up, right? right. everything felt like it was going well. i'd gotten about 30 rows down (maybe a 4" square) without the phantom stitch appearing. all my stitches looked straight! it was pretty! so I figured I'd attempt to purl. big mistake.

an hour later, while watching Desperate Housewives, all i had to show for my day's worth of knitting was one row of stitches. all the time i'd spent knitting was completely undone by my vain and hubristic efforts at purling.

defeated, I put the needles and yarn down and had some hummus and chips. i know i'll tame the yarn, but not in one night.

*CawfeeMate and i have been catching up on old episodes of Grey's Anatomy and i was intrigued that crazy, cancer riddled Izzie could crank out a scarf for Dr. Bailey in one day. how hard could it be?

Lighten Up Faggot (or You're a Card)

saturday, the huz and i went to my favorite godson's 1st birthday party. while standing around and chit chatting with my friends and their family, they asked if we had seen the new ABC sitcom Modern Family, which had premiered Wednesday night. i admitted we hadn't, but that it hadn't looked all that funny to us*. they unanimously proceeded to disagree and tell us that it was that funny, so when we got home from the party we watched it on ABC.com.

very long story short ('cuz this isn't intended to be a review of the show), it really was a great pilot; the preconcieved notions i had** about it were completely dashed and i really enjoyed it. the reason i'm brining it up is because the 1st scene you meet the gay couple, they're on a plane picking up their newly adopted vietnamese baby and are uptight about the flight home; in the face of what appears to be an anti-gay slur. one of the guys gets up an gives "the speech".

i'm sure you know "the speech". we all have "a speech". it's that anti-anti-gay tirade we all have practiced, a thousand times, in our heads; it may a couple of words or a couple of pages worth, but we'd love to deliver to right-wing, conservative shitheads who snicker and laugh and heckle us when we walk through the mall or down the street holding hands or sit too close on the train. "the speech" is reactionary and/or caustic and typically knee-jerk liberal finger wagging. well, friday night i got to deliver a few lines of my "speech" at the Hallmark store in the Staten Island mall.

Non-Pregnant Juno Looking Cashier Girl: did you find everything you were looking for?
CawfeeGuy: no actually i didn't. unless you have a section for "Congratulations on your Domestic Partnership*** or Non-Federally-Recognized Marriage" that i didn't see.
NPJLCG: Um...what?
CG: Never mind.
NPJLC: wait...do you mean, like, gay marriage?
CG: yeah. forget it. Hallmark doesn't make a card for that.
NPJLC: actually we do.
CG: huh?
NPJLC: Follow me.

Hallmark had about 10 or 12 cards, specifically for same-sex weddings (with two tuxes or wedding dresses, rainbows, penguins, etc on them), in their own little section next to the other wedding cards. suffice to say, i left there with a terribly red face, but with blog and cocktail party fodder.

my point in all this, is that the scene in Modern Family was so funny because it was so real. We (the gays), are constantly on guard against "attacks" and "injustice" that, sometimes, we're as hair-trigger-sensitive as a Tom & Jerry mousetrap; seeing it on t.v. (especially after friday night) was just perfect timing (for me) because it really hit home. We need to lighten up, fellas. Sometimes...i'd hazard to say most times... "the speech" is totally warranted and necessary; but there are other times when, comically, it's the complete opposite. during the lattter, we need to be able to step back and laugh at ourselves. truth to be told, i think if we laughed at ourselves more often we'd be alot more...gay.

*in truth, CawfeeMate had called me up on wednesday morning and asked if i had heard of the new "gay sitcom" and i felt compelled to correct him that it was just "a sitcom with gays" and not the next Will & Grace after having seen an ad on the subway.
** that the gay couple would just be 2 dimensional punchlines for tired old jokes about 2 fags and a baby
*** two our friends, Chris and Patrick, went down to Staten Island Borough Hall, on Friday, and got...domestically partnered...which totally deserved a card.

Tuesday Morning WTF

i've tried to look it up (admittedly with little dedication), but can anybody explain to me what the point of this game could possibly be? anyone? (points for originality).

There's a Hole in My Heart That Goes All the Way to Sunnydale

Joss Whedon, you dirty cock-tease, 45 minutes is not enough.

i want more....

.

more Neil Patrick Harris.

more singing superheroes.

more brilliantly ridiculous lyrics.

more Joss Whedon-isms.

.

damn you for getting me hooked and then cutting me off

30 Second Update

Mom's doing well; she's been home since sunday and has, over the last few days, become more like herself again. she, dad, stephen and i are going out for dinner tomorrow night, so things are definitely back to normal.

as i mentioned in the iPod post, i found out last week that i am still employed; and have not been subject to a pay cut. my department will survive the "transition" (no snickering) and i plan on coming here till they tell me not to. the latest rumor is that we're being moved from brooklyn into manhattan. that's a move i'd gladly make.

i fixed a major iPod problem last night: all my music playing at different volume levels; somehting which was quite maddening. thanks apple for posting the instruction book on your website (but not including it in the box). i also bought season 1 of Futurama and a song or two from iTunes...just to check them out. truth to be told, i wasn't overly impressed with iTunes selection of movies or tv shows; granted i only took a quick tour. we'll see what the future brings...maybe Maude.

Behind the Times DVD Review

Check out the Logo network's Rick & Steve; we rented Season 1 from Netflix and laughed our asses off! it's like that wretched South Park show, only...funny.

the best part? voices by Peter Paige, Wilson Cruz, Margaret Cho and Allan Cumming!

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

for another waste of 3 and half hours.

Even Jon Stewart seemed to notice how stale, un-funny, and un-interesting the show was. endless and pointless montages (did they really need to show us all 79 former Best Actors, Best Actresses, and Best Pictures?), poorly performed songs (Kristen Chenowerth should be ashamed), lackluster acceptance speeches and bad jokes (Halle Berry vs Dame Judy?) made this one of the most forgetable Oscar shows i've ever sat through (second only to the year David Letterman hosted). granted, i didn't see any of the movies that were nominated for any of the awards, but still...the show itself was just dull. i guess we can blame the writer's strike. on the plus side i do want on seeing La Vie en Rose and Juno.

i regret staying up past my usual bedtime of 10 pm and not watching season three of Charmed (Shannon is finally dead and they've replaced her with Rose McGowan who's quite a little spitfire and not a half bad actress).

We're Here! We're Queer! We're Settling!

there exists in life certain balances that the universe needs to maintain in order to prevent reality from crumbling into the metaphysical ether:

life and death.
near and far.
agony and ecstasy.
light and darkness.
good and evil.
mickey and donald.

sort of like a gift-with-purchase, you cant have one of these without also having the other to balance the scales.

occasionally though, the universe throws us a curveball; a singularly unique experience which has no opposite number; no dark side (or bright side, as it were). take for instance Gay/Lesbian Television. it's all inherently awful. sadly there exists no good gay television...no sweet and shining Samantha to balance out the dark and malicious Serena...to balance out the crap.

take, for instance, the latest in addition to the crap heap, the Here! network's the Lair. would you believe it's a spin-off of Dante's Cove? I came across it in Netflix's archives the other day and thought "eh...what the hell; it can't be as bad as the Cove, right"? wrong. it's actually worse, if you can believe it. set mainly the Cove's local sex-club (doesn't every small town have one?), the Lair, the proscuitto-thin plot is built on the premise that the underground hangout for the Cove's S & M set is frequented by vampires. The ringleader of this merryband of cock/blood suckers is a Dorian Grey-esque character with a wonky eye and a tattoo of a seahorse. there's quite a bit more plot advancement than in the Cove, which is based on incredibly repetative dialogue (ie. "I think he's dead", "yes, he looks like he's dead", "that's how the dead look") delivered by actors who look attractive only if you blur your eyes a little while watching . i found out later, thanks to IMDB, that the entire cast is made up of porn stars, including (wait for it...wait for it...) Colton Ford. don't laugh...he's the best actor in the entire show...probably on the whole damn network. thankfully, unlike Dante's Cove, it's only 25 minutes an episode (10 of which are dedicated to the same Red Shoe Diaries sex scenes that it's parent show was known for). We're four episodes in and i'm not quite sure what the whole point is, but i know it's awful.

yes, gay television seems to be in dire straits. the more of these crappy shows we watch on DVD the more glad i am that we don't subscribe. i'd really be kicking myself if we shelled out more money to sit through such dreck. it's a pretty sad state of affairs when these shows make you miss the halcyon days of such awful gay stereotypes like Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Billy Crystal on Soap and Men on Film from In Living Colour. at least with those shows the straight networks were pandering to us.

for now, all we have are the black-holes of the Here! and Logo networks, creating a disharmonious reality in the gay community.

What I Learned About Women From Watching TV (shows on DVD)

some (supposedly) smart women are actually really really stupid (or just make really stupid choices):

Some women are really really hot and could should be much bigger stars than they are

Some women really should be left on a raft in the middle of the ocean never to be seen again...

this post is brought to you by Season 3 of Grey's Anatomy, House MD, and Season 4 of the L Word, Best Buy and Netflix; without whom we would be forced to sit through the endless repeats of Everybody Loves Raymond and CSI that seem to be on every channel, all the time.

So, Am I the Only Person Who Watched Be the Next Food Network Star?

finally, reality TV i can appreciate. sunday was a marathon.

can you say riveted to the TV for, like, 8 hours? stephen, on the other hand, was ready to hang himself after 20 minutes.

somehow, it made me hate Bobby Flay even more than i already did.

how did i miss the 1st 2 seasons?