My State After The State Of The Union – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’ve said it before but now I really believe it. I am officially old. As I sat and watched President Obama give the State of the Union speech I found myself mired in cynicism. I didn’t want to be in that head space but there I was (I also didn’t want to be talking back to the television screen but there I was doing it –old man here I am). As I watched all the “fat cats” in Washington sit on their well fed and insured haunches I just couldn’t help but think, nothing has changed, nothing will change. I still believe Obama’s the right man for the job and I want to believe him (really I do) but he’s not a superhero and he can’t do it alone. If I was younger I would think that I could help him with that change but as I round the last bend of life’s curvy street I find that once more I’m in a pothole watching the fancy cars go by. My state after the State of the Union – Don’t Get Me Started!

The state of Nevada is 48^th for educational funding, so not surprising that we are dead last in our education results. This week there will be more cuts to education in Nevada. Good plan? As our Las Vegas mayor raises millions for a “Mob Museum” and a new City Hall, all that we’re doing is creating future honorees in the museum and uneducated people who will clog up the courts because they won’t have the tools to get jobs or do anything but get in trouble. I guess the good news is that they’ll at least get to see the new city hall building. As Las Vegas comes in the top of the “most foreclosed homes” in the US, and as more and more people who came here to prosper are deciding they need to move back to their Midwest suburbs, here my city stands with a big new shiny complex called, City Center while away from the neon of the world famous Strip there are more and more houses rotting away and kids graduating high school who can’t read. Will Las Vegas become Waterworld (a very expensive flop)? Probably not because people will always want to come to Vegas but as I watched the State of the Union and watched my senator, Harry Reid yawning, I thought how tiresome politics and all these supposed budget experts are and how out of touch they are with the people of this country who need some leadership from their leaders.

The more that I watched the more I thought about how much we need a major shift in our thinking. The alleged “White House Party Crashers” hosted a night at one of the clubs here in Vegas and they couldn’t do a red carpet because they were afraid they wouldn’t have enough security for all the people who wanted to see this couple who are the least extraordinary people I think you could find. We’re all so busy trying to get our own reality shows that while Obama talks of building jobs in clean energy and high speed railroads, I have to wonder if anyone from the American-I’m-An Idol-Too-Generation will want to work those jobs. Will Snooki become a clean energy expert? Will Mike “The Situation” end up as an engineer of the new high speed trains? I doubt it. But maybe just maybe we should be putting our scientists and brightest kids on a pedestal instead of these putzes? We need to find our next Albert Einstein instead of our next Biggest Loser but I just wonder if we’ve gone too far in our adulation of nobodys to shift to a new wave of thinking where we create and celebrate somebodys? None of us seem smarter than a fifth grader to do it and the problem is that we think it’s funny that we’re all this stupid.

Look, on the whole I try to stay positive. When Tinkerbell drinks the poison to save Peter Pan and we have to clap really loud for her to live to show that we believe in fairies, I’m clapping the loudest in the room usually but as I watched the State of the Union I definitely thought it was going to take more than happy thoughts to get me to fly again in the belief that we’re still living in the greatest country ever. Remember that it took fairy dust and happy thoughts to get the Darling kids off the ground and flying. I hope that Obama’s words weren’t just words. That education will once more become a focus for this country, that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will go away and will finally start to break the stronghold the religious right have on running this country. I want to believe, I’m ready to clap Mr. Obama and I do still believe in you but unfortunately I don’t believe anyone else who was in that room with you (Democrats or Republicans). For them it’s politics as usual and he who dies with the most money wins. They’ve forgotten how to lead because they’re so busy trying to win. I want us all to win. Hey, what was that? Optimism? Maybe I’m not as old and jaded as I thought. My state after the State of the Union – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Think I Can Face The Gym Again – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m not a “go alonger” never have been and I don’t know that I ever will be one. If absolutely everyone is wearing something or doing something or going to see something, I have no interest. And so before the holidays as I would visit the gym twice a week for my Zumba classes (knowing full well that I really needed to be there 8 times a week and doing more than just an hour of cardio to songs in Spanish that I couldn’t understand) at least I was going, right? But then the holidays came and so did travel, then a bad cold and then the realization that everyone simply, EV-ER-Y-ONE goes back to the gym in January to begin their New Year’s resolution that won’t last the month so I didn’t want to add to the clutter for the regular gym bunch. But now as January comes to a close I’ve begun to think (and my pants have begun to beg) that it is indeed time to enter back into the holiest of gay temples, the gym. I think I can face the gym again – Don’t Get Me Started!

Months ago I was at a gay party (make no mistake about it, it was dull as hell so not gay in that way but gay in that there were a lot of gay people there) and I met this young couple in their twenties who were going on and on about how they absolutely love the gym. I was bored, I wanted a cigarette (even though I haven’t smoked in a thousand years and when I used to smoke only used it as a prop with my cocktail and cigarette in the same hand I would gesture grandly, “Look at that one over there, not the sense to come in out of the rain but abs you could bounce a quarter on and lose an eye!” A swallow of vodka, a puff off the cigarette letting the smoke slowly emanate from my lips while I waited for the laugh.) These guys, who looked like they had the body of twelve year olds went to the gym every day meanwhile someone should have told their bodies because I don’t know what they looked like out of clothes but in clothes one looked so thin that he seemed as though he would have the brittle bones of a woman who hadn’t heeded Sally Fields about Boniva and the other one had a pot belly that surely should have been reduced from all those hours in the gym, right? I know what you’re thinking, that maybe they only went to the gym to have sex with other men but as I can attest, not every gym features gay sex or people who are interested in the gay sex (I know, sorry to disappoint).

I have over six thousand excuses for not going to the gym (some include bad hair day, nothing to wear, convincing myself that I shouldn’t go because I’ll catch someone else’s germs from the equipment and so on) but now that we’re coming to the end of January I’ve lied to myself enough, gone through the entire list of excuses to find that I’ve none left. I need to find some new excuses and almost did. I decided a couple of weeks ago that there was no point going to the gym because my body at forty-five years of life and with what I’ve done with it (nothing) makes it impossible for me to physically achieve the body I want so why bother? If that isn’t the greatest excuse in the world, I don’t know what is. I actually walked around for more than one day believing this after a quick convincing session with myself. I lost my metabolism years ago but now with nothing to blame but bad living, a pot belly gene passed down for generations all I could do was convince myself that I had a body that had passed its ability to spring back into shape so there was no point.

Well, excuses be damned, this week I will get back on those stairs that never end, might even do some crunches, or try to lift myself (with the assisted chin up machine) and begin to try and feel abs when I’m sucking in again. That’s been the greatest thing I’ve lost by not going to the gym. Before when I was going I could actually feel where my abs should be if I hadn’t eaten recently and sucked in really hard but for the last month or so when I suck my stomach in, there’s so much to it that I can’t suck it in enough to feel that I once had some abdominal muscles at all let alone see the doughed over tracks of them. So sad. So unless my mind can find any more reasons, gym goers beware. I think I can face the gym again – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Leave It To Us Gays To Have A Hunger Strike That Includes Cappuccinos! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Of course, like everyone who would read the story of a young gay man being beaten by four men and causing him to wake in the hospital with internal bleeding and an almost unshakeable anxiety, when I first read Francesco Zanardi’s story on gayagenda.com, I was moved (read the story here http://www.gayagenda.com/2010/01/gay-couple-live-streams-hunger-strike/) . That was until I got the bottom of the article and discovered that while Zanardi and his twenty-something partner are on a hunger strike to bring attention to the awful crime committed against him (meriting 1,500 fans on Facebook who are following them) and allowing people to see them on their hunger strike on a live feed, Zanardi is supposedly “living off just three cappuccinos a day.”  Leave it to us gays to have a hunger strike that includes cappuccinos! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know, I know, I’m going to hell but I just couldn’t help myself. I had my somber gay beating face on until I got to the cappuccino part and then I felt the corners of my mouth starting to rise. I was smiling. Here was this story about this young man who was beaten and who was doing something to ensure that he and his partner’s experience was known to the world and I was chuckling…a lot. Do you blame me? Don’t answer that.

As soon as I was able to move on from the hunger strike that included cappuccinos I began to think of other gay protests that would no doubt garner publicity while retaining their “gay” sensibilities. Maybe someone could sleep on a bed of nails for three days with only a throw pillow for a pillow to protest how hard gays have it in society. Maybe someone could chain themselves to a store, you know like Barneys (in the men’s department) to bring to everyone’s attention that without gay salespeople there would be no retail. Finally an event where everyone wears Lady Gaga hand me downs (because don’t all of her costumes look so uncomfortable) this would be a protest about how uncomfortable some gays have it in society.

Okay, it’s all silly, right? But isn’t a hunger strike that includes cappuccinos a little silly too? Maybe I’m just being more evil than one person is allowed to be. Maybe I’m just being hypocritical because I wouldn’t have taken it nearly as hard had he been drinking V8 or something with some vitamins instead. But when someone is protesting with a hunger strike that includes cappuccinos, I would just think the responsible thing to do would to just not mention the cappuccinos. Never mind the fact that I’m jealous as hell because they’re both going to be so gay thin at the end of this protest that they could wear anything, I’m wondering why Starbucks (who is so causey) isn’t getting involved?

There’s a lot of injustice in this world and I do think it’s great when people take a stand but I can’t get past the cappuccinos. Sorry. I know, I know that I’m being a bad gay and that they’ll probably come and take my card away when they read this but come on, don’t deny it, you laughed a little too, didn’t you? Leave it to us gays to have a hunger strike that includes cappuccinos! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Now That Bin Laden Is Taking Responsibility For The Underwear Bomber, Here Are Some Other Things I’d Like Him To Accept Responsibility For – Don’t Get Me Started!

I guess none of us (the world over) were surprised that Bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the failed underwear bomber on Christmas day. I do find it a little odd that he wanted to take responsibility for something that wasn’t even successful but I guess like any celebrity, it’s good to keep your name out there in the Press. Mission accomplished. But I started to think about all of the other stuff in the world that has been less than great and I was just sort of hoping Mr. Bin Laden, that you might take responsibility for all that “yuck” too. Now that Bin Laden is taking responsibility for the underwear bomber, here are some other things I’d like him to accept responsibility for – Don’t Get Me Started!

First and foremost, since he all ready is taking responsibility for one moron, I’d like him to accept responsibility for some other morons besides underwear boy. I’d like him to take responsibility for Pat Robertson who told the world (and his many followers who continue to send him enormous amounts of money) that the people of Haiti made a pact with the devil and now they were getting their due as it were. I’d like Bin Laden to take responsibility for this and actually all of the religious zealots in our country who are just as whack (in my humble opinion) as any terrorists (hello, Mormons are you all listening?). Also appearing on the list of morons would be the entire Fox news team which now includes Sarah Palin. We all know it would make these right wingers break out in a rash if they were even uttered in the same breath with Bin Laden so I’d like Laden to put them on his list as well and take responsibility for them attacking human decency. All of the above are always so good about waving the American flag and discriminating against their fellow Americans like us gays and anyone who isn’t white that I think Bin Laden should take them as his responsibility cause God knows, most of us sane Americans don’t want to accept responsibility for these hate mongers with their televised moronic rants.

The skinny jean (and everyone who is wearing them when they know they shouldn’t oughta be). I’m convinced that we’ll find out that the skinny jean is giving everyone cancer because it’s compressing their lower body and pushing their abdomens over their waistbands causing not so much a gastric band procedure as much as it’s causing an eye sore. No doubt Bin Laden is behind these to make us look like Dr. Seuss characters and hinder our ability to run away from him and other terrorists quickly. And while we’re on the subject, he can take responsibility for cancer too.

The more I think about this the more I like it. I want Bin Laden to start making daily speeches about everything he’s responsible for and maybe that way someone somewhere can wise up enough to find and kill the son of a bitch! If Sarah Palin shot him from a helicopter I think I’d even vote for her as President (just a little incentive there, Mrs. Palin). There are far too many things for me to add to this list but feel free to do your own adding and then we’ll send the letter to the North Pole and hope he answers it or at the very least maybe Santa will forward it to him for after all, Santa knows where everyone is and if they’ve been naughty or nice. And think of it, has there ever been a better good vs. evil pairing than Bin Laden and Santa? I’ve got my money on Santa. But now that Bin Laden is taking responsibility for the underwear bomber, here are some other things I’d like him to accept responsibility for – Don’t Get Me Started!

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“Man Up!” More Bad Parenting Overheard – Don’t Get Me Started!

We went to dinner the other night a little after 10pm at one of the local casino’s eatery options. Not a fancy place mind you and from the looks of it as we were seated, mostly empty. But soon after we sat down, we began to hear a conversation that was taking place two booths over. It wasn’t that we were going out of our way to hear this conversation it was thrust upon us, as the people who were speaking were loud, very loud. The first voice we heard was a woman’s, she was saying, “That’s grandmother. You are to call me grandmother.” Then we heard a small child who couldn’t have been more than two years old saying, “Maaaaamaaa” to which the “grandmother” corrected (loudly again). This went on for some time while in between there was some screaming from the child and a lot of yelling from the “grandmother” telling the child he was an idiot, and to shut up. When she left the table to go to the restroom I suppose I saw ”grandmother” she was a trim, well coiffed woman who if you saw her on the street you’d think she was perfectly normally and understood how to behave in public. That was all about to change. With “grandmother” gone and the child still screaming, something happened that caused the child to start crying upon which time I heard a man’s voice bellow, “Man up! Stupid idiot.” Soon after the child echoed the words, saying them as if he had no idea what they meant. “Man up!” More bad parenting overheard – Don’t Get Me Started!

What went on after this initial screaming was pretty much more of the same until the “grandmother” came back and got into it with her server as well. The server was an older woman who seemed as though she had spent most of her life waiting tables. Although she was a little abrupt in her approach, there was nothing that would suggest she was rude. But apparently “grandmother” didn’t feel that way. Nothing the server did was right and “grandmother” was not quiet about telling her everything that she did wrong. At one point, “grandmother” said to the server (after the server had gotten almost half way across the room), “Do we have a problem?” She was trying to sound sophisticated but her tone and manner through the entire meal belied her façade of the classy woman she thought was firmly in place. In between yelling at her grandson, the server and everyone else at her table she finally called the manager over to explain (just as loudly) how rude she thought the server was to her family. As she shaded the story to make her seem like an innocent, the manager did what he should have, listened to her and apologized. As the manager left the table he came over to our table to ask how everything was (no doubt because everyone in the section had heard this woman and her tale that he told him). We couldn’t help ourselves and explained that we couldn’t have helped but overheard everything that went on and the server was not at fault. Well, this caused quite a stir in “grandmother’s” world so she began to even yell louder….about us! I suddenly was aware just how sorry I felt for the people at the booth between us. Presumably due to embarrassment, the woman at the table took her aim at us and then loudly declared that they couldn’t stay in the restaurant any longer due to all the rudeness. She made her huffy exit, staring us down as she, her daughter (the I guess mother of the child, she not looking older than 15 herself) and a 6’6” man in red sweats who came to our table as if to look mincing but once he was there had no idea what he was supposed to do and just looked like the most worn out loser in the world. (Remember, he was the one who’s only parenting skills consisted of telling a two year old to “man up”).

We could hear her at the register continuing her tirade which now included us when suddenly, the child starting running through the restaurant screaming at the top of his lungs. First the teenage girl began running after him, almost dropping the phone she was texting on, she came back out of breath and throwing her hands up, “I couldn’t catch him.” The “father” stood there exasperated when finally “grandmother” showed up. “I’ll take care of this, now this is grandmother, do you hear me?” (she shouted through the entire restaurant) “Grandmother is going to begin to count, 1, 2…” and with this she took off presumably to catch him. There was silence for a moment and then here came “grandmother” with child hanging by one arm crying as she screamed, “Shut up, just shut the hell up.” As she got past her I guess husband she mustered up her classy façade and said, “Come along dear.” And while I hoped that would be the end of it, soon after this scene she re-entered staring us down as she crossed to what had been her table. “And don’t take this tip off my table please, as you seem to be so in my business.” This was directed to us as she stormed about. After leaving the money on the table she began to leave with her daughter who had been behind her texting the entire time, I guess the lumbering “man up” man was holding onto the child. As she walked past our table again she stared at me as if we were in some sort of contest. She said, “What? What? You have no idea who I am. What?” And as I stared in disbelief with a French fry half in and out of my mouth all I could say was, “Have a lovely evening?” More muttering ensued as her daughter texted and told her mother that I was still looking at them or something until they were finally out of sight. After we all counted to twenty there was suddenly silence again. Heaven.

So never mind that there should not be a child out for dinner at that hour or that you should be teaching a child how to behave properly in a restaurant without screaming at them, which by the way is not how to behave in a restaurant but I just couldn’t help but feel badly for that small boy who was being raised in a world where people put on “airs” constantly yell at him and he’s told to “man up.” It would seem to me that the thing that needed to happen here was for these people to “parent up.” I know, I’m not a parent, I’m not allowed to judge but when something like this happens, which involves me when I really don’t want to be involved, I think I have a right to comment. “Man up!” More bad parenting overheard – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Reporters In Haiti Need To Not Be So Clean – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know, everyone hates me for yesterday’s post about us needing some help with education, homelessness, etc. right here at home as much as the help they need in Haiti. I guess it’s just part of the American arrogance to worry about our citizens too but whatever. What has become an increasing concern of mine is the fact that every time I see a reporter from Haiti they seem to be very cleanly dressed and coiffed as they walk through the rubble. Either they’ve found a way to help the local economy by hiring Haitians to be their personal assistants (who no doubt have to find a river somewhere to beat their clothes clean on a rock) or somehow the reporters’ living conditions are a little too good for what’s going on there if you know what I mean. Reporters in Haiti need to not be so clean – Don’t Get Me Started!

The other morning I was watching CNN and there was this reporter who was tall, dark and handsome. They had him in a full body shot as he loped about the rubble. He was wearing a very fitted green v-neck t-shirt that sort of had that Gap feel but since he’s working for CNN it was probably the Banana Republic  version of the shirt that can also be found a little cheaper in the Gap and if you want a disposable version of the same shirt you can get it at Old Navy (since all three companies are owned by the same corporation). Anyway, you get the idea. He was in great shape and the shirt clinging to him was clinging not due to sweat or the shirt being wet and dirty from rubble lifting, it was tight because the reporter knew he had a great body that looked good in this very clean, bright and very tight green t-shirt so he bought it in a size that would show off the body he worked so hard to get. Good for him that his shoulders were straight across like a cross beam to keep a dilapidated building up and that it hung perfectly on his 6’3” frame tapering down to a waist that is normally only achieved by a corset. It was sort of like seeing the model Tyson in the middle of the rubble from the earthquake. While people behind him were picking up pieces of concrete and rubble he walked through it all as if at any moment he was going to do the “all this can be yours if the price is right” arm that the models on Price Is Right do to showcase the big showcase.

Although I was very young at the time, I remember seeing reporters like Dan Rather reporting from actual war zones. They always had fatigues on, looked fatigued and were dirty from being in foxholes presumably risking their lives to bring us news here back in “The States,” the story from “The Ground.” But not our modern day reporters, no sir, they all still manage to keep that studio fresh appearance somehow even in the middle of a war zone. To their credit, they’re not in ties and jackets (as that would seem too dressy I guess) it’s sort of like they’ve received a pardon and get to dress “crisis casual” or something. They’re all in their t-shirts or those shirts that look like they came out of a catalog for people who go on safaris. You know, you don’t know anyone who has actually been on safari but apparently you need a lot of khaki shirts that have a tab and button to keep the sleeve rolled up.

As if the wardrobe doesn’t get on my nerves enough just by itself, believe me when I say it’s taking a village to raise the hair of these reporters too. There’s so much product in their hair that I’m convinced that none of them took it as carry on with the TSA’s 3 oz limit. Their Sebastian, Bumble & Bumble and Bed Head products no doubt had to be in their checked luggage because they’re using the full sized version of the product, not the travel size.

I guess if I were a reporter I’d want to look good too but I think what gets me the most is that somehow all of these reporters and their crews were able to get into Haiti to begin almost instant coverage while the inundated airport struggled to get the doctors and supplies into the country. Does that seem wrong to anyone else but me? Does the “cheese” (as it were) stand alone on this one? And would it kill Anderson Cooper to have just one hair out of place and a ripped shirt on while he single handedly pulls people from the rubble? After all, that’s the stuff that fantasies are made of for both men and women, right? Reporters in Haiti need to not be so clean – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Think We Need To Send Suze Ormond To Haiti – Don’t Get Me Started!

Trust me when I say that I was just as moved as everyone else when viewing the horrific consequences from the recent earthquake in Haiti. You’re talking about a guy who has had to stop watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition because his tear ducts and sinuses simply can’t take all that sobbing so you can imagine how I felt and feel when I see the images of this tragedy unfolding. I also have to wonder why so many news teams from around the world are there and not picking up a shovel in between getting their makeup done and interviewing survivors (Anderson Cooper excluded for his recent pulling a survivor from the wreckage) with such insensitive and stupid questions such as, “You were under a pile of dead bodies for three days, how did that make you feel?” Yes, I actually heard a reporter ask someone this question. Amazing but I chalk it up the 24 hour news cycle and the American thirst for tragedy I guess. So as I watch this on a national and local front hearing everything that everyone is doing for Haiti, including stars who are donating a million dollars like us normal folk give a dollar at the store for breast cancer and sign a paper pink ribbon with our name on it to be displayed in the store, I can’t help but think of all of the people starving in America, the people who still have no real home after the floods in New Orleans and all the jobless and homeless in our country. I also have to wonder if we Americans with our not so great track record of financial prowess should be sending all this cash to a place where the infrastructure of the government is not great. That’s why I think that along with the telethons and cash, I think we need to send Suze Ormond to Haiti – Don’t Get Me Started!

Suze Ormond with her no nonsense approach to financial advice annoys the crap out of me. I know, she’s a lesbian and because we’re both homosexuals I should love her and I do love her but I can only watch about six minutes of her. Something about the tone of her voice and her fervor that makes it like watching Nancy Grace, that guy from Mad Money or the Christian Right to me, a lot of screaming at me and I didn’t even do anything. But we need her to go there and handle this for the world’s sake.

So far, our government hasn’t done well with the trillions of dollars that it’s supposed to be “budgeting” every day and I think it’s even more ridiculous for Bruce Springsteen and the rest of the celebrities to donate a bunch of money while George Clooney answers phones to send even more money that will no doubt end up in the wrong people’s pockets. If Bush and Cheney were still in office I’m sure it would go to Halliburton but with Obama, God love him, who knows where it will end up? I myself am a complete mess when it comes to finances. I have no idea what the interest I should be paying on anything should be, always think I have more money in my account than I do and am just generally, like the rest of America a screw up when it comes to my finances. I try to tell myself that I’m helping the economy by spending money on things I really don’t need and can’t afford but in truth, I’m just digging a hole from which I’ll never get out of probably. But this isn’t about me. My point is that the supposed experts in this country haven’t seemed to do any better than me but at least Suze Ormond I think we can trust. She’s a lesbian for God sake, do you have any idea how trust worthy lesbians are? I’m telling you, they’re very trust worthy and will cut you if you think differently.

And while we’re sending Suze over to handle the financial end of things I think we need to send some other people too. While America loves to say it’s the richest country in the world, we’re really just the most spoiled. So here’s what I think we should do. I think we should round up all of those people who think they’re too good to take a job in fast food or these people who have lived on welfare for an eternity popping out more kids to get more money and getting a doctor somewhere to label them as disabled (yes, I saw Precious) and send them all to Haiti to get to work. I don’t think we Americans have any idea what a good honest day’s work is anymore so I think we should take the Jersey Shore kids and send them over to Haiti to build houses and do what those boys seem to think is so important – GTL (Gym, Tan, Laundry) – they’ll be building houses so that will be a better work out than lifting weight which gives them their man tits they desire, they’ll be getting tan because they’ll be outside all day and they can do everyone’s laundry like the Tide truck I saw that goes into areas that have had tragedies and cleans everyone’s clothes (love this idea). Let’s not send our good people over there, we need our good people here to figure out how to make jobs and whatnot happen. Let’s send over all of our reality stars who get big paychecks for so little and the teens who feel too good to do anything but be a star on American Idol. Let’s send all the 30 year old, wannabe rap stars that are still living on their mother’s couch over there but for God sakes people, let’s keep our arrogance to a minimum and not think we know it all when it comes to finance like the bunch I’m proposing we send over, shall we?

We need a good solid strategy in place before we send money to a country that has no idea what to do with it and we also need to admit that we’re not much better in that department either. So here’s my idea for a solution that will really help Haiti once the celebrity money come in. I think we need to send Suze Ormond to Haiti – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Screw The Chicken In Every Pot, We Need A Gay In Every Family – Don’t Get Me Started!

In Herbert Hoover’s 1928 campaign for the White House he was quoted as saying, “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” He was alluding to the fact that under his leadership the country would be so prosperous that the above would become a reality for all Americans. Well, yesterday in the lawsuit against California’s Prop 8, after reading the testimony from San Diego Mayor, Jerry Saunders, it occurred to me that while we still have plenty of people hungry (and without cars or now even garages to put a car in) what we really need is to get a gay into every home. Screw the chicken in every pot, we need a gay in every family! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Mayor Jerry Saunders ran for mayor stating that he would veto any proposition that crossed his desk to allow same sex marriages but when his own daughter came out he realized that he had been prejudiced and “I was saying one group of people did not deserve the same symbolism of marriage, and I was saying their marriages were less important than those of heterosexuals.” Although we gays have been saying this loud and clear for some time now, we have to remember that the straightees (and especially straight white men) are not very good at understanding human rights of anyone that doesn’t look just like them. (No matter how hypocritical they are as they attend church and talk a lot about Jesus loving everyone.) I applaud Mayor Saunders for not vetoing the legislation and for him testifying in this landmark case but it would seem to me that we gays should use this as a wakeup call.

Although having a politician’s child come out doesn’t always ensure us changing their white straightee male minds (look at Mary Cheney and Dick – appropriately named) it couldn’t hurt either. But what we need to do is get a gay in every household, not just in politicians’ households. Sure there may be some “visiting” gays as decorators on cousins on your wife’s side of the family in for a visit but what we need are honest to goodness gays in residence to get where we want to go.

So here’s what I think we should do. First of all, I think there are a lot of gays all ready in place but like some futuristic microchip that some villain who wants to take over the world uses to “activate” his minions, we need to start “activating” the latent gays. While I know many gays have tried in the past to “activate” gays who claimed to be straight by sucking it out of them, giving them blowjobs and having sex with supposedly straight guys, this is obviously just not working. So boys, while I applaud your efforts I’m here to tell you that for the most part you’re not making gays realize they need to come out so much as you are acting like a slut at a frat party. Hey, I’m not here to judge, if it makes you happy go for it but we have a cause to get across and your lips could be used for the cause instead of just giving some closeted guy some pleasure who afterward will tell you how you seduced him and he was “so fucked up” he really doesn’t remember you taking his behind from behind!

Look, I abhor people who “out” other people, I think everyone should come out in their own time but I just want the gays who tell everyone they’re not gay who are reading this (and soon after deleting their online surfing history from their computer) to know that if you ever thought of coming out, now is the time. Now is the time for all gay men to come to the aid of their country. (Not original but it will work.) And remember straightees, look on the bright side, once we gays have identify ourselves it will make it easier for you to know who to pray for. Even though once we’ve got one in every house we’re going to take over the world (insert menacing laugh here). We gays have tried to show you straightees who live in fear of gays that we’re just like you, moving in and cleaning up your neighborhoods but apparently it’s just not enough, apparently we need to actually move into your home like your child who graduated college and can’t find a job so they’ve moved back home. The benefits of having a gay in your home are too many to list here but rest assured that just like we helped increase your property values by moving into the neighborhood, the same will be true about your personal life once we’re in your very walls. Think how easy it will be. No more wondering whether or not that sofa needs another throw pillow. No more wondering the appropriate wine for that dinner to impress your boss. And no more having to say, “Do you know Ashley? Well her cousin is one of them there gays! Can you believe it?” (insert shrill laughter here) No, once we’re in every home you won’t have to do so much talking behind our backs and eventually you’ll realize that we’re human beings just like you (only a little better) and that we deserve equal rights when it comes to not only our daily lives but in the current laws on the books that exclude us or strive make us second class citizens. Screw the chicken in every pot, we need a gay in every family! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Two Things Gays Can’t Avoid – Inequality And Taxes – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that the original phrase is something about not being able to avoid or the two absolutes in life are “death and taxes” but as we all know, gays are vampires, thus immortal so as it comes to tax time again, I find myself getting the very life’s blood sucked out of me once more as I go to check the box “single” yet again. Two things gays can’t avoid – inequality and taxes – Don’t Get Me Started!

This past year my state finally “allowed” my partner and I (of over 21 years) to enter into a contract of Domestic Partnership which is registered with the state (but good nowhere but in this state) and basically allows us a lawful way to enter a hospital room should one of us be really ill, make some decisions, and be responsible for any debts we incur as a couple. What it doesn’t give us is a host of other things, not the least of which is medical coverage guaranteed and a cut in taxes like other domestically partnered people who get to use the high falootin’ “M” word instead of domestic partnership for their relationship. As I’ve written many times before, I could give a crap about the shoes and rice, I want the tax break!

And so as I began to fill out a new W2 for my employer and then began to look at my taxes, I began to wonder if us gays who have been partnered for a thousand years like me shouldn’t just check the “married” box instead of the “single” one and let them come after us? On the whole I am such a rule follower that it makes most people bored with me. My father used to say that you should never use the garbage disposal because it might break it and to this day it is with great trepidation and a feeling akin to breaking some major law that I flick the switch and hear the disposal at work. I always think to myself, “This is the time it’s going to break it and then I’m going to have to explain (even though I no longer live with my parents) that my father was right and that the disposal is now broken.” So far I’ve been pretty lucky.

So if you can push a rule follower like me to the edge, you know the inequality must be pretty profound. Here I am with my “Domestic Partnership” paper and I want to take it out for a test drive but unfortunately the only way to do that is to run my partner over with the car and then go to the hospital with the paper and say, “You have to let me in, the state of Nevada says so…so there.” Of course running someone over is breaking the law and that would kill me as well as being potentially arrested for the first time in my life (I’m pretty good at talking my way out of most things) so it hardly seems the thing to do.

All of you officially “married” people out there get a lot of things that we Domestic Partners, Civil Unioned, etc. gays just simply don’t get and I don’t think you realize it. I love that Britney Spears can be married in Vegas for ten minutes and get a tax break when I can’t because of my so-called “deviant” behavior. And by the way, with her money she can afford to pay more in taxes.

People love to say that we gays have “disposable incomes” because we don’t have the bonds of marriage from some antiquated vision of marriage when women didn’t work so the man took care of the woman and 2.5 children thus not having “disposable income.” Well the times they have a-changed so should we still have to pay the price for something that doesn’t even exist anymore is my question? Look around and you’ll see that no one has disposable income anymore, gay or straight. And just because we’re single in the eyes of the Federal laws doesn’t mean that we should have to pay more in taxes when we’re not living the single life. I’m fine with sluts having to pay the additional taxes, in the long run they lean on the government (and free health clinics) a lot so I’m fine with those single people paying more in taxes but why I should have to when I’ve been in a monogamous relationship so long that I make wildlife who mate for life look like amateurs, is beyond me. I have no disposable income, I’m not single by any means and yet here I am faced with having to check the “single” box for another year so that I don’t break any laws, so that I follow the rules. And it makes me sick. Sure, at the end of the day I’ll probably check the “single” box but there’s a part of me that is dying to start a viral campaign to have all of my gay partnered pals to check “married” and wait for them to come after us. Could they arrest all of us? How fast could they do that? And wouldn’t it in the end (no pun intended) be like all the bad neighborhoods we gay couples go into and fix up, maybe we could help with prison reform from the inside out? Or maybe, it’s time for congress and this country to stop fixating on words like the “M” word and give us our fucking equal rights as a citizen of this here United States! Two things gays can’t avoid – inequality and taxes – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Don’t You Get Tired Being So Angry? I Know I Do! – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I was driving behind a car this morning that had the license plate that read RN4GOD I started to get so pissed off. First of all, I hate the whole “vanity” license plate thing because much like texting, talking on the phone or giving/getting a blow job while driving, it’s just distracting as I try to figure out what those letters and numbers sounded like to the person who chose them and what they mean. So as I figured out that this was a nurse who probably was very religious I started getting even angrier. Shouldn’t they be an RN for the people they’re treating? I know that God supposedly works through us (like a bad burrito or something) but honestly, on a license plate? And that’s when it hit me, that’s when I said to myself, “Don’t you get tired of being so angry? I know I do!” – Don’t Get Me Started!

On the whole, I think that anger is a good thing. I can’t stand people who bottle it all up and put some sort of cultish smile on their face while causing an internal hemorrhage. And although as a child we were told that if we were angry and we knew it, we should stomp our feet, I’m more inclined to yell a little with the whole foot stomping thing. I admit it, I’m not all that evolved but hey, it’s me. I like anger because it’s an emotion and when it comes to emotions I’m all about it. Whether I’m crying over a Folgers commercial around Christmas or typing so hard on my keyboard creating my next blog on something that “got me started” I think one of the best things we get to do as humans is experience our emotions and share them with others. I never understood the people who refuse to cry in front of other people, please, get it out. It doesn’t make you more mature or more of a man, woman or human, it makes you less human and ultimately usually does you more damage than good. Get it out, let it out is what I say (to emotions and to most of the men I met in the 1980’s – wink).

I’m an extreme liver. I don’t mean that my liver, the organ in my body, is doing extreme things, I mean that I don’t walk about on an even keel saying, “Oh, life is grand and whatever the Lord has in store for me will test me and teach me until I can meet my maker in the afterlife.” These people are what I call “in denial.” They seem to want to be a leaf (victim) caught in the tide of God while some of us are making waves, swimming upstream and generally splashing about creating our own destiny. And then there are some who never show emotion whatsoever, we call these people, “flat liners” because you almost always have to check to make sure they still have a pulse. I’m not saying one is better than the other, I’m just acknowledging that we’re all a little different and yet we can still be categorized, you know, like butterflies or porn stars (twinks, otters and muscle bears, oh my) – you get the idea. A friend of mine used to call us, “Abyss walkers” because we walk that very narrow strip of life that is so close to the emotional edge that at any moment we just may fall into the abyss. I liked that, made me sound much more adventurous than I’ve ever really been.  

But when you live in the emotional extremes (and don’t take medication nor want to take any medication as you’re extremes have not reached a level that could harm you or anyone around you) you find that every once in awhile, pumping all that emotion through your body causes a dull ache behind the eyes and a little soreness in your joints. Like working out a lot (not that I would know) your body begins to take the brunt of your emotional stress and strain. So as this week ends and I find myself exhausted I realized what I’m sure a lot of people do, anger (or any high emotional level) can make you tired. Don’t you get tired of being so angry? I know I do! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Let Me Tell You How Much Sympathy I DON’T Have For Mark McGwire And The Rest Of Them! – Don’t Get Me Started!

With Mark McGwire all over the news and everyone’s television screen with his admission (finally) that he was on the steroids bores the crap out of me. The tears in his eyes, the red eyes, and his blotchy face with a forehead that could have told anyone a long time ago that he was either on steroids or from the Flinstones cartoon leaves me unemotional. Sorry Mark and the rest of you. Let me tell you how much sympathy I DON’T have for Mark McGwire and the rest of them! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Very few people get to have careers in the spotlight. And the ones who do rarely have their careers thrust upon them without working mighty hard to get it so when I hear that the “trappings of fame” can be difficult for people it makes me throw up more than a little in my mouth. I look at all of the celebrities through the years (yes, after the Hollywood studio system when they created your image and every piece of press that went along with it for you), athletes, etc. who through the years have been very famous and very good about keeping their feet on the ground. They understand that they asked for this and they take the good with the bad so when I hear the Mark McGwires it just bores me.

I find it hysterical that he can actually still be in denial as he gives his big apology tour a whirl. I heard him saying something about steroids not having anything to do with his eye/hand coordination and then of course they have doctors on who say it could very well play a part in his eye/hand coordination. So even in the apology he’s still in denial that it was anything but him that created and broke those records. My, how arrogant can you be? I say, strip him of the titles (like he stripped himself of his balls being on the steroids – both figuratively and literally) and then, don’t “erase” his name from the history books but make sure that his name is never mentioned without the mention of steroids and his lying. I don’t care what this has done to him as he did it to himself. His tears affect me about as much as Jimmy Swaggart’s did when he “sinned.” These men need to learn that they are not Gods and no matter how much they pump up their bodies and egos, being human is not something to be ashamed of but to embrace. I know, some of you are saying right now that his lying is human too and I should offer up a little more forgiveness. It’s not for me to forgive him and let him have a coaching job, that’s for someone else to decide.

Like rappers who are constantly thanking Jesus for making their albums win an award with such great lyrics as “fuck your mother, you bitch, yo” sports figures that are steroid based hit me the same way. Look, I know that we’re putting unbelievable pressure on our celebrities but I’m just asking that they remember they wanted to be there in the first place and not look for sympathy when they’re caught in their lies. I don’t expect Tiger Woods to tell everyone about his affairs, that’s his business and I could care less but when you break someone’s record to write your name in the history books and it’s based on a lie then I think groveling is in order. Think of the person who wasn’t on steroids whose record you broke, and their families. Think of the sport or field of work you’re in that you loved so much you wanted to rise to the top of. Just think of someone other than yourself for three minutes. And let me tell you how much sympathy I DON’T have for Mark McGwire and the rest of them! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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The Only Good Heterosexual Is A Dead Heterosexual! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Do I believe the title of this blog entry? Of course not, some of my best friends are straight people (or as I call them, “straightees”) why even my parents are straight (if you can believe that) but the above phrase is something that has been used about almost every minority and a recent a posting on one of my Forty-Something video blogs got me thinking, what if white straightees (by which the standard of America is judged and modeled) had to endure what we do as homosexuals, as Jews, as black, as Hispanics, as…well anyone who wasn’t heterosexual and white? The only good heterosexual is a dead heterosexual! – Don’t Get Me Started!

In my video blogs I decided to do a series on gay icons, people who weren’t all gay but that influenced many gays and became cultural icons to us gays of a certain age. One of those entries is on Cary Grant who was loved by men, women, and children and as we all know, the camera. (See that video here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvwC9idiGu4) In response to this video, what I can only assume is a woman, as she has the word, “girl” in her online YouTube screen name, wrote the following:

Ignore for a moment that she can’t spell the word, “absolutely” or use a question mark  (I’ve often written just how funny I think it is that most of the time when people leave negative comments they have no idea how to spell or use grammar) but what got me crazed about this comment is not only her “relief” at the fact that Cary Grant was by all accounts, not gay but that even though she uses a photo of him for her icon on her profile  and obviously likes his work, she wouldn’t be able to “stand him” suddenly if she thought that he had slept with men (which would have taken place some forty plus years ago since he’s been dead since 1986). Never mind how dumb this “girl” is for her comments, there are plenty more people out there who I’m sure feel the same way, yet it’s another wonderful double standard we have in this country. While some straightees are allowed to be openly repulsed by us gays, we gays seem to never be able to do the same without being told we’re just being ridiculous because after all, sex between opposite sexes is natural, for creation and a beautiful thing, not an abomination like gay sex.

So here’s a short list of straightees who disgust me:

Woody Allen – who slept with and married his much younger basically stepdaughter

Roman Polanski – who raped a 13 year old but because it was so many years ago and he gave her wine, it’s suddenly now okay in so many people’s eyes

Mel Gibson – the drunken Jew hater who has reproduced like he’s trying to keep up with those straightee cult-seeming Duggars from TLC who also scare and disgust the crap out of me

Jon Gosselin – I can’t imagine that’s a dick to write home about once you’ve sat on it, which so many girls have apparently

The entire cast of Jersey Shore (boys and girls) – no explanation needed

The thing is that we gays are seen as some sort of freak of nature supposedly making a “choice” like our hair color or something to have sex with the same sex. I knew I was gay from the time I was born basically so don’t tell me it’s a choice. And don’t tell me if I just slept with a woman it would change everything because I have and it didn’t. Some gays try to say, “Hey, just because I sleep with guys doesn’t mean I’m not just like you.” Thanks to this wonderfully bigoted and full of hate society, we gays just aren’t the same as you straight people and do you know why? Because just like any other minority that is shoved down in America by the straightee whitees, we have to work harder, be smarter and overcome greater obstacles just to get close to be on an even playing field with our straight, white counterparts. We’re still not there on a lot of issues but if you think I’m going to stand idly by and let some “girl” or anyone else get away with their bigoted bullshit in my presence (whether it be in person or on the web) you are mistaken. So here’s to the continued gay uprising for equality. While some may think our slogan should be, “We do more than hair we’re just like you straightees.” I think our slogan should come from The Elephant Man (changed a bit), “I not an animal, I am a fabulous human being.” And don’t Rosa Parks me and think I’m going to sit at the back of the bus either. And do I think all heterosexuals are like this and need this lesson, no, but until things start to change, I’m going to treat all of you straightees like so many straights treat us gays, lumping us together like bad mashed potatoes. The only good heterosexual is a dead heterosexual! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Gay Marriage, Airport Scanners, I’ve Just Had Enough – Don’t Get Me Started!

I know that I’ve haven’t tried hard enough in 2010 to ensure that I don’t get so upset about things that I can’t change. Here we are, about ten days into the year and I can feel my blood pressure rising to a level that is somewhere between boiling and stroke (on the terror threat index, I’d be a hot pink). With the new round of recent airport threats and now Proposition 8 going on trial for a sort of Federal trial but for what everyone knows that no matter what the outcome, it’s going to end up in Supreme Court before it will ultimately be decided upon I find myself once again with an eye brow raised and my eyes rolled back in my head to my Medulla Oblongata! Gay marriage, airport scanners, I’ve had enough – Don’t Get Me Started!

The whole gay marriage thing just needs to go to a federal court and we need to see if Obama and the rest of his gang are going to put up or shut up. This whole, “let’s let the states decide” by the Federal Government (with congress thinking, let’s give it to the states so we don’t have to be the one responsible for God’s anger or the special interest groups that give us money for our campaigns being mad at us and not sponsoring our yacht) has really become almost like asking the Nazis in Germany to vote on rights for Jews. Is anyone surprised by the outcome of these states who give the rights and then some religious group finds a legal loophole to get it on a ballot and take the rights away? I’m not. As far as I’m concerned gay rights (which should just be human rights and I’m disgusted that I have to list them this way) should all be drawn with dry erase pens. Nothing is staying in place in our favor until our Federal Government decides they need to make all men (and women) equal not only on some old document but in our actual laws. Until that happens we may as well get used to the fact that it’s like writing on those tablets you used to get as a kid where you could draw on them and then lift the thin plastic to make it all clean again, obliterating all of your work.

Meanwhile at an airport near you which has been found time and time again from everyone from Al-Quaeda to 60 Minutes to be as secure as your online viewing of porn (stop being so nervous, you have to know if someone really wanted to find out they could look on your hard drive and discover your affection for goat porn, yes?) an idea to put scanners in place to stop fashion terrorists (this is what I call them, after all, we’ve had the shoe bomber and now the underwear bomber, it’s only a matter of time until we see the Pashmina Poisoner) scanners as airport security are making everyone nervous. “It’s an invasion of privacy” “TSA is going to email pictures of my naked scanned body to their pals.” All of this is just bullshit. If it makes it safer to fly then they can feel around in my fly all day if they want to (as long as they’re attractive and have warm hands).

Who is behind all of this you may ask? Why the same people who are running our country and have for centuries, straight white men with small penises. That’s right, the straightee white men don’t want scans at the airports because they’re afraid everyone will see how small their penis is, the thing is that only they (and the people they get drunk enough to sleep with them) care about their penis size, I care more about the safety of all of us when we fly and so should they. The same goes for gay marriage, the thought of two guys together doesn’t get them hot so they don’t want us to get married. If it was hot lesbians that were at the forefront of all of this, rest assured we’d all ready have the rights. Because these white straightees think they still have a chance with chicks who dig chicks. White straight man with small penis says, “They just haven’t had it from me yet, but I’d take both those gals on and change ‘em in a minute.” Ugh.

In other countries and cultures they don’t have the hang up about sex (and sexual orientation) that we do here in the USA. Which is sort of mind blowing considering we were leaving England to create a brave new frontier without the religious right dictating our laws and actions when this whole thing started, right? But if you want to see how hypocritical all of this is, all you have to do is watch some “soft porn” television – where they’ll show a woman’s business district and boobs but never a penis. Can’t show the penis, it’s obscene. Why? Because we don’t want the straightee white men to feel less superior so they don’t allow it to be shown. What a shame we spend more time trying to put a pair of pants on the statue of David instead of worrying about the fact that today’s artists (and budding artists in schools) are neither encouraged or supported by our government.  Get rid of culture for the sake of the high and mighty bible interpreters, by all means!

Well, there it goes, my blood pressure. I tried, really I did but I lost the battle. Battle, just the word gets me all riled up about gays in the military (or not being “allowed” to be in the military)! ARGHHHHH! Gay marriage, airport scanners, I’ve had enough – Don’t Get Me Started!

H1N1 Envy – Don’t Get Me Started!

As I’m typing this I’m realizing that when I’m done I’ll need to disinfect my keyboard. That’s right, I have what is commonly called, “The Common Cold” and much like people who “slip up” in Mexico by not drinking the water but then brush their teeth with the water and suddenly become ill, we germ ridden monkeys always tend to “slip” up by never cleaning our phones or keyboards and therefore re-infecting ourselves all over again. There’s no way you’re going to be able to clean and disinfect everything you touch and no matter how many people tell you that if you do this or that it will make the cold last for less days the point is that when you’re sick all you really know is that you feel as though you’ll never feel well again and that whining is going to be involved. But the real problem is that now with the old H1N1 around, if all you’ve got is a cold, no one wants to hear about it. H1N1 Envy – Don’t Get Me Started!

I get a cold maybe once or twice a year and although I always “work” through it (would I be any kind of Jew if I didn’t work while sick and become a complete martyr?) for the most part the colds are more annoying than life shattering. The cold I have at the moment is a head cold so I find myself feeling like Morty, the six thousand year old Jew. I walk about at a slight angle, ask everyone to repeat everything they say (because my head is so full of gunk I can’t hear anything) and my mouth is constantly open just a bit as it’s my only chance of breathing with my stuffed up nose. A very attractive look to be sure.

But what really gets me is that when people talk to me on the phone or see me, they’re like, “You sound (look) awful, what’s going on?” Besides this being the last thing you want to hear when you know you look and sound awful, what gets me is that now that the H1N1 has come along, no one really has much interest once they find out what you’ve got is “just” the common cold. My own mother was like, “Well, it’s just a head cold, it’s not like it’s H1N1 or anything.” A friend was like, “Well, I’m around kids all the time so I know colds can be annoying but don’t forget that my daughter had Swine Flu and we had to get her on Tamiflu immediately.”

I don’t think for one minute that my friend’s daughter had Swine Flu, she was better in a few days and while I know that drugs can be a wonderful thing, I don’t think that they’re that good. But what gets me even more is that at my age (45) I’m not even considered as a possible H1N1 infectee. That’s right, it’s only for the young and old according to some reports. When they started to administer the (the only word I can think of right now is “antidote”) they said that they wouldn’t even give it to us forty-somethings because we weren’t in the possible group of infectees. Is it any wonder I’m so bitter toward the H1N1 and it’s ageist views? So as I sit here blowing my nose and wondering just how many more days it’s going to take before I begin to feel like myself again, I can’t help but think of those people with their H1N1 and all the attention they’re getting while us common cold clutch just suffer in silence (well, almost silence). H1N1 Envy – Don’t Get Me Started!

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You Know It’s Bad When I’d Rather Read About Your Children Instead Of What You Think Of Your Sports Team On Your Facebook Status – Don’t Get Me Started!

When I first joined Facebook I was amused by the things that people would write for their status. I have one friend who is hilarious and she had written, “…has decided not to make her comeback after all.” I laughed out loud when I read it. Hilarious. But soon as I was “friended” by everyone who had hit me, hit on me or wanted to be my friend from high school, the status updates took an ugly turn. Suddenly I was seeing things like, “…I see God when I look in my daughter’s eyes.” Blech! Bring me the sarcastic, the witty, the fun but don’t suddenly sound like something that I could get on a decoupage plaque from a store named, The Mustard Seed (something I still don’t get how it relates to Jesus and not just a spicy brown condiment for corned beef but whatever). Then former co-workers “friended” me and suddenly the status update took yet another ugly turn, sports talk. You know it’s bad when I’d rather read about your children instead of what you think of your sports team on your Facebook status – Don’t Get Me Started!

If I wanted to listen to or read commentary about sports I’d go to the SPCA or ESPN (whatever the hell those initials are). I don’t care that you think your prayers will be answered by writing them as your status for your favorite team or player or whatever the reason it is that you’re writing this on your Facebook page, what you’re not willing to admit and what no one but me will tell you is that by doing this you’re showing just how boring you are! That’s right, when all you can think of to say is, “Geez my Eagles are really showing their stuff today.” What you’re really saying is, “I have no life and I’m hoping by writing about sports people will think I’m cool and want to be my friend.” Well, high school is over and you’ve just gotten yourself “unfriended” from my Facebook, pal.

I was offended by people who felt the need to put everything they were doing on their status, “Just went to the bank and then it’s home to make cookies for Dylan’s class tomorrow. I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done I need to get done. Just not enough hours in the day” Maybe try not taking the time to write everything you’re doing on Facebook and you just may find the time is there after all, moron. What always gets me is that very soon after you read someone’s status like that it’s invariably followed up with a posting that they just bought two cows and mowed the back forty on Farmville. That’s right, you have no time in the day to do anything but write on Facebook about how you have no time to do anything yet you still have time to tend to your imaginary farm on Facebook. What the fuck, you fuck?

Do I seem angry? You bet. Because with all the status bullshit and now twating on Twitter, people are under the impression that anything they write is interesting enough to read. They’re wrong!! If you want me to read your status updates you’re going to have to do better than seeing God in your child’s eyes or sending a prayer to keep your favorite footballer’s balls in the right place. Which makes me think, maybe for one day I’m going to status myself into a frenzy. Maybe for one day I’ll show people what they should be saying on these status updates. Hmmmm…too many evil thoughts running through my mind at the moment, better go buy a pitchfork from Hellville! You know it’s bad when I’d rather read about your children instead of what you think of your sports team on your Facebook status – Don’t Get Me Started!

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I Got Bullied By A Nurse – Don’t Get Me Started!

Although this happened prior to the New Year, I’m still seething about it, thus the blog entry. I had gone to the doctor in November for just a usual sort of check up and then went back in December. The first nurse I saw informed me that I was supposed to have come back for the results within two weeks and it had been a month. When I told her that the doctor told me if I didn’t hear from him than nothing was wrong and to make the follow up appointment at my convenience she looked at me with a sneer that seemed to say, “You’re a liar.” When I finally got into the doctor he assured me that most of my levels looked good but that I did needed to go for an additional test due to one of my levels being I don’t know, orange? Do they rate them like the terror threat by color? Who the hell knows?  Anyway, at the time of checking out I made the appointment with the lab to get the test done, only to have to cancel it later due to work scheduling. You can imagine my surprise when I received a phone call on a Friday at 3pm from a nurse from the lab. I got bullied by a nurse – Don’t Get Me Started!

I was driving in my car trying to get some last minute holiday shopping done before I headed to the east coast. I was in a parking lot about to park at the time so I figured it would be safe enough to answer my phone. On the other end was a cheery voice telling me that she was from the lab and had noticed I had cancelled my test. What started off as a friendly conversation soon turned ugly…really ugly and it went something like this:

Nurse: I just wanted to see if you wanted to re-schedule your test.

Me: I’ll need to do it when I get back in town, you see I’m about to go out of town for a couple of weeks for the holidays.

Nurse: Well, did anyone tell you that we have Saturday hours?

Me: No.

Nurse: I have an opening tomorrow at 10am or 10:30am will either of those work for you?

Me: I have another appointment at 11am

Nurse: It only takes fifteen minutes so either one would get you to your appointment in time. Which one would you like?

Me: (admittedly whining a bit) But don’t I have to drink like a gallon of water two hours before the appointment or something?

Nurse: It’s 32 ounces and yes, two hours prior to the test.

Me: But that means I have to get up at 8am to start drinking. I don’t want to do that on my day off. No, I think I’ll just schedule when I get back, thanks.

<Entire Mood and Voice Change>

Nurse: Well, you know you’ve all ready waited two weeks to get this test and the doctor really wanted it as soon as possible. If you don’t come in tomorrow then I’m just going to send this back to the doctor and then you’ll have to go back and see him before you can come to the lab for the test. You’re really just making it more difficult for yourself.

Me: Look, do what you have to do and I’ll deal with it when I get back.

Nurse: We’ll see. (She hangs up)

At first I was proud of myself that I wasn’t bullied into making an appointment when I didn’t want it but the more I thought about it the angrier I became. You see, I know a thing or two about insurance and the end of the year and the more I thought about it the more I realized that she was just trying to get me in by the end of the year. Did she really give a shit if my kidneys were falling out? I think not. On the whole I’m not a conspiracy theorist but I know when I smell a racket! Someone was putting pressure on the nurse to get as many people as she could get in by the end of the year so that they could fill their quotas with the insurance companies and no doubt $25 co-pay me as much as possible.

Whatever happened to the health industry caring about our health? Great that they’ve passed a health care bill that won’t take effect for two years and will be crappy at best but for those of us who faithfully pay our premiums, stay healthy and do what we’re told, why should we be raped too? Or I guess the better question is why don’t we all realize that the health insurance industry and drug companies are all ready raping us more than Catholic priests? No wonder so many people hope they can just stick an herb up their ass and get healed! Doctors used to be Gods you didn’t question and you were in awe of their knowledge and compassion now they’re just prescription writers and “come back in two weeks” when you’ll pay another co-pay criminals. But old habits die hard and there’s a part of me that is sure I’m dying if I don’t go in and get those tests. Rest assured I’ll make that appointment soon but I’m going to be less relieved and more pissed when the results come back that I’m absolutely fine. And what sense does that make? I got bullied by a nurse – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Yes, I Understand You’re Closing The Courthouse Due To The Shooting But What About Getting An Extension On My Traffic School? – Don’t Get Me Started!

I wrote about it when it first happened. After years of going without getting a speeding ticket, in the course of two weeks I had received two speeding tickets and was not amused. When I called about the first one I just made the deal with the devil and paid what I was told but the second time around everyone convinced me that I should get them to allow me to go to traffic school so that I wouldn’t get any points on my license and my insurance wouldn’t go up. It didn’t lessen the fee but I did it anyway and knew that within the two months I had to complete the five hour class online I could make it happen. Well, of course the days slipped by and while I ignored the whole idea of taking five hours of my time for an online class and test, on the day that it was due I had second thoughts. I thought that perhaps I should try to get an extension. And while I have CNN on at my office and had seen that there had been a shooting at the Clark County Courthouse and one person had died, I guess I just figured it was a different building and I could still get my extension. Oh boy when I don’t get it, I really don’t get it. Yes, I understand you’re closing the courthouse due to the shooting but what about getting an extension on my traffic school? – Don’t Get Me Started!

Look, I give to charities and do my part to help the world out whenever I can but sometimes I’m just dense (or selfish as some may call it). I remember the morning of 9/11 watching the second plane go into the tower on the television at the gate at the airport and then boarding the plane thinking we were going somewhere. Was it that I was just so into myself or was the whole thing just so unbelievable at the time that it seemed more like a movie with special effects than something that was actually happening? I don’t know but I remember feeling pretty stupid when they wheeled us onto the tarmac and then after sitting there for an hour they wheeled us back to the gate. Then they told us we might be able to get out on a later flight. What were they thinking? And good for me for cancelling my travel for that day and going back home.

So when I saw on the news that the courthouse in Las Vegas had a shooting I just sort of ignored it when it came to thinking how it might or could affect me. I looked through all the paperwork I had carefully put in an envelope regarding the citation and found a number at the bottom of one of the sheets where you could call about traffic school. In my dialing, I guess I dialed another department by mistake at the Clark County Courthouse because here’s how the conversation went:

Court: M Department

Me: Oh, uh…um, is this the….

Court: Clark County Courthouse? Yes.

Me: Oh, good, do you handle traffic school?

Court: No. This is the right building but not the right department.

Me: Oh, I must have dialed wrong. Well, do you know who I need to speak to about getting an extension for my traffic school? You see, it’s due today, I know nothing like waiting until the last minute right? But I was wondering if…

Court: Well, you’ll have to call back tomorrow – the right department and no, I don’t have their number. We’re in the process of locking down the building due to the shooting this morning.

Me: Oh, oh my God. I saw that on CNN. Geez, I guess no one there really cares about my traffic school at a time like this. But I wonder if they’ll let me have an extension tomorrow when it’s due today?

Court: I have no idea. (Sounding more than a little impatient)

Me: Okay, I guess you want me to get off the phone so you can get out of there, right? Well, be safe and get out of there, will ya?

Court: Yes (much ruffling of papers and then the line goes dead, I’ve been hung up on)

As I hung up the phone I just laughed at myself. First because I knew that there was no way I was ever taking that traffic school and would no doubt see a huge increase of my insurance but also because here I was trying to be all jovial and the woman on the other end of the line probably wanted to shoot me. Is it just me? Are we all so self centered that when we see someone try to blow up a plane in Detroit we really only think about the fact that we’ll be inconvenienced because there’s no way we’re going to be able to sneak the 5oz bottle of lube past the TSA when they only allow 3oz bottles as carry on? I don’t know about anyone else but I know that no matter how loving I am and no matter how many stray animals I take in or help, when judgment day comes I’ll no doubt have to re-visit this phone call. I can hear it now:

God: Now let me get this straight, you had seen there had been a shooting on the news, right?

Me: Yes.

God: Okay, so even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and go with your claim that you didn’t know it was in the same building, once you got the woman on the phone and she told you they were closing the building, didn’t you get it then?

Me: No, not really. Well, I mean, I got it but I thought she could use a laugh and would get the ridiculousness of me worrying about my traffic school when there was a shooting where she was. I thought it would be a good distraction for her? (My voice trailing up revealing that even I didn’t believe the shit that was coming out of my mouth)

God: (shaking his head) Just look at you, even you don’t believe that shit coming out of your mouth. Yes, I can read your mind and yes, I think you were punished enough by having to pay all that additional insurance for the rest of your life. Welcome to hell – go right in. Just a little joke!

Yes, I understand you’re closing the courthouse due to the shooting but what about getting an extension on my traffic school? – Don’t Get Me Started!

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Okay 2010 – Bring It! – Don’t Get Me Started!

It would seem as though the years that begin with great fanfare never cease to disappoint me so I’ve sort of taken a bit of a cynical approach to the start of each year. I try to have as little merriment as possible because as I said, the bigger deal I seem to make about it the less it seems to live up to my expectations. In truth I’m dying to open my eyes the first of every year hearing the Optimistic Voices from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first sees the Emerald City, “You’re out of the woods, you’re out of the dark, you’re out of the night. Step into the sun, step into the light. Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place on the face of the earth or the sun. Hold onto your breath, hold onto your heart, hold onto your hope, march up to the gate and bid it open…” Okay 2010 – Bring it! – Don’t Get Me Started!

While I will do my level best to take in less sodium, visit the gym more often, communicate with those I’ve not spoken to in a year or so I refuse to make these official resolutions. I sort of think that making resolutions is a way for a huge letdown too. If you make them official “resolutions” then you have to actually act upon them and then feel defeated when you don’t stick to them. I am instead this year just being the fairy that so many have called me over the years and I’m making New Year’s “wishes” – things I’d like to come true but that I’m only partly responsible for but also need some fairy dust and someone with the right wand to make come true (boys, minds out of gutter about wands waving to make dreams come true).

What I’ve found even more interesting though is what other people are doing to start off the New Year. I innocently asked the woman behind the counter at Starbucks what she did for New Year’s Eve and she proceeded to tell me that she and her mother had gone to their church’s sweat lodge for New Years Eve. I tried desperately not to allow my tell-tale eyebrow to raise or my head to tilt or my lips to purse. I think I smiled too much but she was too dehydrated from the sweat lodge to notice. Another person unsolicited told me that they drank so much they threw up almost all of the first day of the New Year, after all they stated, “January 1^st is the country’s official hangover day.” I don’t understand this. I understand a buzz for New Year’s Eve but getting so drunk you wake up in your own vomit while it does seem as though you may begin to hear voices I doubt it will be the high pitched “Optimistic” ones I wrote about earlier. What it really all comes down to is that the world is too dehydrated on January 1^st to know what they want. Whether you spent it at a sweat lodge or drunk off your ass, the best thing we can all do for one another is to drink at least two 8oz glasses of water on New Year’s day before we go around posting our resolutions on Facebook or talking to anyone. Just a thought.

Lest you think I’m the cynical bitchy queen that only exists on television and 1970’s movies and that modern day gays are ashamed of, I can assure you that I’m going to do my level best to greet this year with as much optimism as possible. The year is still half full at this point however I also realize that as I said to a friend recently, I have four minutes of patience left for the rest of my lifetime and the clock it is a-ticking. So don’t let me bum you out. Don’t let me stop you from filling my gym for the next month and getting in my way with that zeal that can only die off by the time American Idol begins in earnest in February and your fat ass once more fills the indentation on your sofa you worked on for years to create. Go ahead and stop to smell the roses just know that with the chemicals they use to grow them these days it could cause you to have a monster allergy attack the likes you’ve never seen while a prick from one of the thorns could turn you into Peter Parker or some other normal person made superhero from radiation. But by all means, let’s all put on our hamster suits and get on that big wheel, running as fast as we can, at least we’ll get the exercise, right? Okay 2010 – Bring it! – Don’t Get Me Started!

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