Since I am still occasionally surprised to learn that someone I know or work with hasn’t figured out that I’m gay: my husband (Michael) and I are both men, and we’re very much in love with each other and happy together.
Category Archives: life
14 beats 11
During the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), the government of the state of Georgia had purchased a large amount of goods on credit from a merchant who lived in South Carolina by the name of Captain Robert Farquhar. At the end of the war, Georgia refused to pay the amount owed Captain Farquhar on the grounds that Farquhar had been a British Loyalist—not on the grounds that the supplies they received had been defective in any way, or that he had otherwise failed to deliver what he promised. It seemed to be nothing more than spite…
Corvair Convertible?
Michael came down sick the day after the con, and more than a week later is still not well. So he had commented Monday evening that I had really lucked out. I didn’t disagree with him outloud, because I did think I was recovering faster than he was, but I also knew I wasn’t well, yet.
Then Tuesday morning we both slept through both alarms, and my head and throat hurt way more than they had on my worst day previously, and I had a fever. So I didn’t go into the office. I worked a bit more than half the day from home, took a couple of naps, and tried to take it easy.
This morning, I woke up before the first alarm. I went to the front door and looked outside, and the day was beautiful: a hint of recent rain in the air, a cool but clear day. I took a shower and proceeded with getting ready. I got to the front door and opened it and it was raining super, super hard, flooded street, and there, trying to maneuver a beautiful, green 1969 Corvair Convertible through the flood waters, was Whoopi Goldberg. Of course, I ran out to try to help her!
And then I started coughing so hard I woke myself up. I rolled over and saw that it was almost time for the second alarm to go off. It took me about five minutes to get it through my head that everything I just wrote about in that paragraph was a dream. I had dreamed that I got up, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously the Whoopi Goldberg part was a dream, but everything before that had been so real.
I still have a fever. Today I have a cough. I’m going to work from home, again.
But the worst part of the dumb dream thing isn’t the disorientation I felt this morning while I trying to wake up and figure out what was real.
It’s the fact that there is no green Corvair convertible parked on our block.
It’s the thought that counts
The recent remakes of V and True Grit, on the other hand…
So NBC has launched a remake of the ’70s detective series, Ironside, and they cast Blair Underwood in a role based very loosely on the character originated by Raymond Burr. I’ve watched the pilot, and it wasn’t awful. I’m not even sure I would call it bad. But mediocre certainly springs to mind. Supporting characters completely lacking in anything resembling a personality does as well.
Sometimes series (whether books or television) take a while to find their footing, so I’m going to probably give it a few more episodes. But by the time I finished watching the pilot, I needed something to cleanse my brain, and by chance I’ve had the TiVo recording re-runs of another Raymond Burr iconic series, Perry Mason. It was truly a joy to watch a 1962 episode.
One of the things I loved about the classic Mason television series, as well as the books, was how often Mason would quote specific principles of law. For instance, in the episode I watched that night, Della Street, Mason’s secretary, has been accused of aiding and abetting a felony murder which may have been committed by an old friend. Mason points out to the officer that in order for her to be found guilty, they have to prove that she knew her friend had committed a felony before she acted, that she willingly assisted the friend, and that both she and the friend were doing what they were doing with the intent to avoid arrest for the crime.
Which is true of many of our laws. What you’re thinking and why you’re doing what you are doing determine whether the act is a crime. It is seldom just the action, but also the intent. This is a legal principle that has been with us since at least the times of the Ancient Sumerians…
Would lose my head if it weren’t attached
I’ll be on my way out the door and realize that I left the travel mug full of coffee that I just made to take with me behind, so I go to get it, and it isn’t in the kitchen where I thought it was, so I have to wander around the house trying to figure out where I set it down. I’ll eventually find it near a light switch I turned off before leaving, and then when I get to the door I’ll realize that I don’t have my keys. The keys that were just in my hand a minute ago before I started looking for the coffee. And don’t think I set the keys down where the coffee mug was, because that would be too easy, no they’re going to be somewhere else entirely.
I’ve managed to waste an entire hour sometimes just trying to find things I had a second ago that I need to take with me on an errand.
So back in August I wasn’t that surprised when I received a box in the mail from a hotel I had stayed at the week before…
I did again
And most years, despite all that, I forget.
Forget isn’t quite the right word, because I set reminders on all of my devices. But those reminders invariably show up while I’m in the middle of something. “Okay, when I get home, I’ll take care of it,” I think.
Again, and again, and again…
Being prime
Last year my age was divisible by 2 (more than once) and 13. The year before that by 3 and 17. The year before that by 5 (more than once) and 2. I could keep going, but I know if I do I will give some of you flashbacks to failed algebra quizzes.
The upshot is, that it has been six years since my age was a prime number.
It’s good to be prime, again.
Tumbling
Not the best way to be remembered
This ought to be the last post about Mr Drunk and Ms Drunker, the former neighbors.
Friday night, our landlady had a party, to which she had invited everyone in our building, plus everyone in the building (not owned by her) in which Drunk and Drunker had lived, and a few other people to celebrate (or commemorate or maybe just commiserate) the leaving of Drunk and Drunker…
Why I hate hay fever reason #5852
I love the fall. First for all the cliché reasons: leaves changing colors, home grown veggies and fruit coming into season, et cetera. And also because I don’t like hot weather and I love fog, clouds, and rain. So fall is great.
Except that as it gets damp, while the pollen count may go down, the spore and mold count starts going up. My sinuses seem to react worst when something they haven’t encountered in a while shows up. So throughout the year as each species in its turn starts pollenating in earnest, I have an extra special surge in symptoms.
Waking me up in the middle of the night with throbbing sinuses, itchy eyes, and a headache that won’t let me sleep.
Though I blame myself. Just a few days ago I was explaining to someone why I never want to move back to the Rocky Mountain region. “If I never have to walk through snow before Halloween again, I’ll be just fine.”
I know that this is the price I pay for not having the live through harsh winters. But it’s hard to think about that when you’re just waiting for the tylenol to kick in so you can go back to sleep and maybe not be a zombie at work.
Font Folly 