here's to you, justice kennedy

5 years ago today, i was working in a shitty job (natch) crying in my office reading the eloquent, rare, delivered from-the-bench text of Justice Kennedy's on the gay's first real legal win, Lawrence v. Texas. sodomy has long been practiced, people, but has only been legal for 5 short years. this was our brown vs. board of education. this case was the first time the supreme court recognized homosexuals as citizens, with rights to privacy like everyone else.

justice kennedy, i fell in love with you a little that day, and i've followed you're judgements since. i've even read your biography. you are now the crucial swing vote in a bitterly divided court, but like Sandy O, i know you'll do the right thing in your cases. you already have.

so here's to you, justice kennedy. i will drink a chocolate beverage in your honor tonight.

" These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State."

"Persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do. The decision in Bowers would deny them this right."

stupid work

oh, how much i dislike you, job. for reals, you suck.

eating at the palace

it was inevitable. days (nay, weeks) of no sleep, frustrating and long work schedules, moving...we were bound to fight. i have to say, i'm proud of us for keeping it minor and for only have one (1!) argument. it was over the dining room table, or should i say, banquet hall, that takes up the entire first floor of our house. needless to say, the table is rachel's. needless to say, she is very attached to said table, though it is an ikea table. that they still sell.

so our living room is amazing...it's floor to ceiling windows, three stories up from the ground, yet one floor below the front door amaizingly enough (btw have i mentioned how much i LOVE our bridge?!?) and still TWO floors away from the sky deck and loft space. our house is like a piece of art. i love it. some hate it. art.

ok. so this particular floor has a living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, and built-ins in the hallway. everything is open. Rach's dining room table, once set up, takes up the entire room. it's the first thing you see when you come down the steps from the front door, and i think the first thing you should see should be the windows and the angles of the house.

so it's set up, and my antique armoir doesn't go, and i am HEARTBROKEN over it, but i tell her that i will sell it. i also tell her, in my 3 am delerium, that i hate the room and everything that's in it. she got very upset about the table, and things escalated to a point where i told her that the room made my skin crawl and i was not living in a room i hated on the off chance that 15 people wanted to come over for dinner. mature.

so, the table is going. i mean really: does one need to seat so many? i feel bad, cause rach wants to be able to seat everyone she knows around one table...but i told her if that happened once a month, i would have to look at that banquet table for a queen 350+ other days of the year for our family of TWO and it would frustrate me. we're still not over it. i mean, i am selling an $1100 antique armoir and i'm not bitching, so i don't understand the attachment to a $299 table. women.

Future

If you move away this blog will have a new name, www.oprahandherassholeexbestfriendgayle.blogspot.com.

murphy's freaking stupid laws

So, I was just offered a dream job in my dream city, one day after Rachel and I closed on our dream house here in our not dream city of Atlanta. Isn’t life just funny.

Although I feel a pang, a small, tiniest of tiny pang of regret that I cannot accept said job, it’s a testament to how much I love rach that in the end, I just don’t care. I’d rather be with her, here.

Oh, seattle. One day.

i needed a laugh

this shit stops here.

ok, so i'm going to blog about what it's like to stop smoking so i will NEVER, EVER take another puff again. cause honestly, i'm a basket case. and i'm weak. and i'm irritable and confused. and this shit wouldn't have happened this time if i'd stayed quit on my birthday. so. 36 hours in...i feel confused, vague...cravings aren't too bad. irritable for sure. guilty. weak and strong in alternating currents. stupid. determined.

i don't want this to affect my relationship because it has already and it's not fair. i feel like i need to go sit on a beach, not drink, and not be around anyone who smokes. it's too easy to have one every now and then, and when i've done that, my moods get out of control. i'm a very happy, content, stable person and since i've been going back and forth, i've been an emotional rollercoaster. i don't even know who i am sometimes with the things that i get upset about. i don't even know yet if they are legitimate.

basta. basta.

lock up your depends, ladies.

i am finally admitting that there *may* be something terribly awry in my neural pathways when it comes to attraction. I was preparing myself today for the big gay tour on Monday, so B52’s, Clicks, and Cyndi Lauper were played ALL day long. Needless to say, I am in quite a peppy little mood.

The point of this story is that I was looking at a picture of kate pierson, who to me has one of the most exquisite voices in existence (and, ahem, who i was very hot and bothered for during most of the 90's), and thought to myself, “yeah, she’s still totally smoking hot.” Then I read the caption under the picture that said she recently turned 60.

I threw up a little in my mouth. But damn, she looks GOOD.

summertime

rach has told me repeatedly that she's not herself during the school year (which is scary cause it lasts 10 months) and that she's much different during summer vacay. i'm beginning to see what she means. her summer self has been drunk and passed out for two nights. should be good times.

obviously, this will be a difficult summer for me as my girlfriend turns into a disco queen while i toil at work. bitter? never.

in the news

so a reporter wants to do a story in the ajc on our house! how exciting is that? she's coming a week after we move in to interview us and then the photographers come the next day. Full circle moment: the few times i've seen queer people and their homes in the AJC, i've always thought to myself that they were brave and i wanted to be like them. well, now i am. rachel is nervous as a hen, but i am estatic. AJC, here we come!

are you f'in kidding me?

you are an obstinant old mule, my friend. you are so sure of proclaiming your "rightness" that you rarely see the fact that INDEED you are not always right.

i see shades of grey, and i know you can too, but not if you're debating; it's just one long road to RIGHT. well fuck that, why can't we just disagree? whore.

i love your stank, stubborn mule of an ass.

Ten Years Later

And you still fucking infuriate me. Sometimes I just want to hit you. YOU LET IT GO, HOOKER! I love you.

here's to you, funny little alien man

dear mr. kucinich,
you are strange, principled, honest, odd, and i just want to say i love you. you recently read all 35 articles of impeachment about our current and worst of presidents in congress. you may have alien visions, but you also have testicles, fuzzy little man peach. i adore you.

a retraction of sorts

for any of the OTPers who took offense at my atlanta post, let me clarify:  i got nothing but love for y'all!   i was referring to the great divide in the political landscape and money distribution of ITP and OTP (and by ITP, i include kennesaw, clayton, loganville - all the metro counties in addition to Atlanta).  it pisses me off that Atlanta, and the metro counties - ITP, if you will, generates almost 80% of the states monies in taxes and revenue, but the OTPers - valdosta or coffee county, for example - refuse to allow the state monies to be used to help the economic engine of the state grow.  No funding for the Beltline.  No funding for MARTA. no funding for the brain train.  no funding for public art, that would transform atlanta into a chicago or seattle scene. no funding for anything that will keep the engine running and will attract more people to the city.  that's all.  

change

so obama is the man. good for him, and good for us. where can i get a bumpersticker? even though i supported hillary, i really respect and admire barack. now - onto VP. Please barack - don't be an idiot - this is your first test. choose a woman (preferaby clinton, but i understand if bill makes you queasy - he's making me queasy, too, and he'd try to upstage you. that would suck.) and heal this party.

love and hate in the ATL

I’ve been living in inman park for 2 months now, and I’m just beginning to comprehend how amazing it is to live intown. I’ve discovered that I like biking, and have amazing greenspace and bike trails less than a mile from my house; I’m running through 100+ year old neighborhoods every other day; I walk the dogs through freedom and inman parks daily and see all kinds of interesting things and people along the way. Not only that, but on the non-healthy side, I walk to restaurants and can get tipsy and walk back home, and I can walk to all the shops in L5P and hilands. I fully understand now why people (including me) pay exorbitant prices to live here – it’s a lifestyle. My scope has gotten so small that even Decatur seems like Loganville now.

When I was just another snellvillian, downtown Atlanta was non-existant…certainly not somewhere you’d want to live. VaHi and Buckhead were already peaking, and Midtown was coming of age, but that’s it, and none of these places resemble what they did just a short 15 years ago. Now, I see people walking their dogs through the business districts, families walking and playing in the parks after work, and healthy development cropping up everywhere. For the first time, I’m kind of proud to be in Atlanta.

HOWEVER. While I’m falling in love with my birth city for the first time, the fact that I’m living in a state that refuses to acknowledge my status (gay and partnered) irks me more and more. I feel like a hypocrite, like I can’t complain about it because, well, I choose to live here. Of course, I have lobbied our representatives and governor, but nothing is going to change in pray-for-rain’s term as governor. The divide between the ITP and OTP folks just keeps growing, and even though the taxes generated ITP fund the state, the policies are made OTP with no regard for the city at all (no transportation $$, no MARTA funding, no social equality, etc.). I’ve having a big conflict, because I deride gays who go spend their weekends (and $$) in Pensacola because FL law HATES gays (worse than GA) but then I live in GA. i don’t know, I have a feeling, but I don’t know what it is. Like a changing feeling…like I’m changing. these social issues are becoming more and more important as i age, and i don't know what to do with them, other than to give more money to the ACLU. however, i don't think that will satiate the need to help change things for long, though i'm sure the ACLU won't complain.

wants

i want a cig. dammit.

Mouthful

It's summer and that means I'm bored. When I'm bored, I think of little projects to do around my house. This is what happens: I get in fixer upper mood. I go to the hardware store. I spend way too much money. I come home. I start the project. I get overwhelmed. I regret every thinking that I needed to improve anything.

Right now, my living room is stark white. Not because I want a white living room, but because I have primed the living room and now do not feel like painting it. I feel like I have been to boot camp. My body aches in places that I haven't thought about in years. I spent my entire Sunday priming the walls, and instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment, I just feel achy and pissed. Basically I bit off more than I can chew.