Monday, July 31, 2006

Sexy Stupid. Just Plain Stupid. And Just Sexy!

As usual as I got ready for work this morning, I had VH-1 on. I'm getting tired of some of their "You Oughta Know" artists, but still the music mix is pretty good. Then Fergie's new song comes on. Ugh! You've got to be kidding?

All my girls get down on the floor
Back to back drop it down real low
I'm such a lady but I'm dancing like a ho
Because you know what, I don't give a f***
So here we go!
How come every time you come around
My London London Bridge want to go down
Like London London want you to go down
Like London London be going down

So yes it's probably got a good beat and Fergie is hot and all that (if you like that type) but what a stupid, moronic song. Of course, this is the same person who had a song just for her "Lovely Lady Lumps." Please stop the madness. Please.

Speaking of stopping the madness, I don't think it's rocket science to figure out that you shouldn't be using your work PC and office supplies to run your own business. FROM YOUR OFFICE! One of our guys just left and when they were doing back ups of his PC they discovered that he was running a business from his office. Oh, he was using our company phone, address, fax number in the marketing materials he had made. What a moron. I'm mad we didn't fire him.

Well I got a "press release" from a porno company announcing that the owner was setting up a blog. (Definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK) I'm not sure if this is really a first, but if it is it's kind of surprising considering how quickly the porn industry latched on to the internet to really push their business. Anyways, it's kind of weird reading. But good eye candy.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Gym Tales & More

Every time I go on vacation, especially if they are gay vacations, I remember what side of the "good looking/in shape" bell curve I really fall on. So I come back and I hit the gym hard. I got up Monday AM and went running, then did back and biceps. Yesterday was chest & triceps, plus some cardio, and today was shoulders and legs. I'll probably just do cardio tomorrow to give myself a day off.

Hopefully the immenent threat (promise) of a trip to Greece and my Med cruise will keep me at the gym and away from full strength Coke. So we'll see.

Tonight at the gym, I kept looking (not staring! but just looking) at this one guy. Okay, here's the deal. We're at the gym. We're working out. We're getting hot and sweaty. And he's got perfect hair. I mean not a single strand out of place. I watch him across the weight lifting floor and I keep thinking. That's just not right. And it's not. It really isn't.

The other person I didn't like (and yes I tend to dislike people with those kind of perfections) is the guy doing the standing butt machine. That machine is for people like me with big fat behinds, not guys with little tiny butts that you could bounce a dime off of. And yes I know that' s probably how he got his ass, but I'm just tired and bitter so let me go with it.

Spinning the subject wheel.

Lance Bass is gay? Yeah, that kind of makes sense. And Mrs. Hitler claims Bill Clinton is gay. Puh-lease. You're just a media whore who will say anything to sell your crappy book. Can you please just go away!

Spinning the subject wheel again:

Toture: Part 1. The CIA contractor has her own, public blog now. And still speaking the truth!
"What can I say? Waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong." Thank you!

Torture: Part 2. It seems the Bush administration still wants to worm it's way around the Geneva Convention. Apparently we're not calling it torture, we're calling it "Coercive Interrogation Techniques". I can see the military acronym already. "We applied CIT to the EC (enemy combatant) and he then he stopped breathing so we had to apply CPR. NFTR (Nothing Further To Report)"

And just FYI. The CID (Criminal Investigative Divsion) reports of abuse actually use that term. NFTR. I've read some of them and it's not pretty at all.

Oh speaking of the name game. In the locker room at the gym I learned that we're now calling the Iraqis we are killing and capturing members of "death squads." Death squads implies that there are a limited number, while "Insurgents" and "militias" implies that there is a broader, larger force we are battling over there. Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up. Now I know the insurgency must really be in its last death throes (sp?) and we've only got a few death squads to worry about. I feel SO much better now. We'll be out Iraq by Christmas. I know it!

Monday, July 24, 2006

Reality Sucks!

Okay, so I'm back from vacation and I've determined that reality sucks. Let's recap:

- Lebanon-Isreal war and our fearless leader is doing nothing.
- Apparently saying that "Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong" on a blog on a government network, after the Supreme Court said that the US must follow the Geneva Conventions, is grounds for being fired.
- The Republican Party is focused on flag burning ammendments and writing discrimination into the Consitution.
- After six, count them SIX f%$king years, our fearless leader uses his veto for the first time! To stop stem cell research!
- Last week marked the anniversary of the hanging of two young men in Iran for simply being gay.
- Pakistan is re-starting their nuclear program.
- Iraq. Need I say more? And if you want to see something truely disturbing, check this out. Make sure you have your speakers on.

So can I go back to Ptown and pretend this is all happening on another planet, or in a bizarre parallel universe?

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Ptown 2006

It was a short, but fun trip. I will say that the weather pretty much sucked the whole time. And I know this as my credit card bill is going to be tres ugly from all of the shopping I did. But I did pick up some cool stuff, including a pair of pants from these guys who were really cool.

Okay, a quick t-shirt round up:

- I was never your boyfriend.
- What are you still doing here? All the stupid people left hours ago.
- My hate is divided equally among everyone. Please make a note of it.

Plus some other fun ones.

Okay, time for some pics. I took this on Tuesday as the ferry approached Ptown.

This is me, and me again (!) at the T-Dance.









































One rainy, overcast day in Ptown.



Oh, and this is where I spent my evenings in Ptown. I didn't see this guy, but can you say yummy in a totally rough trade kind of way?

Friday, July 21, 2006

How About Love?

It's only 645PM, but this is the last fifteen minutes of T-dance and the dance floor is packed. A beautiful mixture of all types of people: young, old, gay, straight, men, women, all dancing to the pounding beat of the music and singing along to the lyrics. It's hot, and with the humidity in the air, more than a little sweaty. But everyone is loving it. And then it happens, a song that lifts up the crowd, changes it from mass of individuals to a single group of energy. And that song is "Seasons of Love". If there's one thing that the gays know it's musicals. And hello, Rent was the defining musical for today's gay generation. Remix it into a dance track and you've got a song that brings all of the boys (and a lot of girls) to the dancefloor singing at the top of their voices:

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?

Well the sun played hide and seek today, so no good tanning. Instead I wandered the east end checking out some of the galleries. We're awaiting the arrival of Tropical Storm Beryl. So it was mainly overcast. The sun did break out in time for the T-dance, but then it quickly went away. After tea, I went to a comedy show that was pretty good. Then it was dinner and then time to change for the evening rounds.

I got up this AM to go running. I ran down Bradford until it meets Commercial and then back up Commercial. Deep in the east end of town, I'm running along Commercial with it's quaint little cape cod houses and I see this guy sitting outside smoking pot. Umm, if you're smoking pot at 9AM, what do you do for the rest of the day? Just curious.

Oh, t-shirt of the day: It's all fun and games until the vice president shoots you in the face!

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Everybody Needs Love

So I sort of snaked a boondoggle on Tuesday in advance of my min-vacation. But in hindsight, it wasn't really that much of a boondoggle. It was a good meeting and I can bring a lot of operational experience that my developer and the borg drone don't have. So it wasn't a complete boondoggle. But it did get me up to Boston a day earlier than planned and I ended up catching the last fast ferry to Ptown that afternoon.

The ferry ride was pretty boring and I spend most of it thinking about all of the work stuff that I needed to do. Kind of having seconds thoughts about taking the time off. I mean, I'll still be on email, but there's just a lot of stuff going on that's hard to do via email. But then the ferry rounded the cape and we pulled into Ptown. The sun was slowing making it's descent over the town and the clouds were glorious in various shades of orange and red. I walked down the peir into the town and I just felt so at peace, so happy, so restful. It was like I was coming home after a long trip. It really was such an odd, and wonderful, feeling. As I pulled my luggage through the crowds on Commercial Street, I saw a woman walk by with a t-shirt that read: "Everybody Needs Love" and I just smiled. I passed the portugese bakery, the typical tourist t-shirt shops, and various restaurants through the crowd full of locals, straight families, gay men and women of every color. All were just strolling along this very pleasant summer evening. It was just amazing.

The next day I had a leisurely get up, checked email, then rented a bike and rode to the trailhead for the beach. It's probably only about 3/4 of a mile along the highway where the trail starts for the beach. Then it's a good 30 minute walk across the sandy tidal flats to the dunes, and then the beach. It was a little bit cloudy, warm, with just enough breeze to keep it from getting too hot. I found a small hollow in a dune to spread my old USNA blue bed spread and camp out. In the sun, but taking advantage of the breeze to keep cool. My afternoon was tough. I'd lie on my back and read my magazine. And then I would roll over to my stomach and read some more. And then I would do it all again. It was a great start to my vacation.

After I had reached my max sun intake for the day, I trudged back across the tidal flats and then rode my bike back into town. I had just enough time to eat, shower, and get ready to go to the T-dance. The world famous Ptown T-dance is held at the Boatslip which has a big deck for everyone to just socialize, mingle, and flirt while sipping the bevarage of your choice. It also has a small little dance floor that draws me like a fly. I've become friends with the DJ and I chatted with her a bit. She had wondered where I was this summer since I usually come earlier. But I was there and after a Cape Cod (natch!) I was on the dance floor getting my groove on. Unlike most dance clubs with the perma-beat, the DJ plays alot of dance remixes with lots of vocals (my fav!) and when she start to spin the new Natasha Bedingfield song, I was just in heaven. She played an amazing set and it was the perfect first t-dance.

After the T-dance I strolled main street and just did some window shopping. I always find the best clothese here. But most of them are not necessarily stuff I can wear anywhere else. But still it's nice to look. After that, I came back to my guest house to check email, and then get changed to go out and hit the bars. Yes, that's one of the problems with Ptown. It required several costume changes. You need to have your breakfast clothes, your go to beach clothes, your T-dance clothes, your wander the street window shopping and checking out the galleries clothes, and then your going out at night clothes. It's hard, but it's the price we pay to be fashionable.

Anyways, I'm on day 2 of my vacation and it's overcast outside. We're expecting to get side swiped by a hurricane, so I called off my beach day. I think I'm just going to wander down the east side of town and check out the art galleries today.

And I'm not checking email any more!

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Weekend Wrap Up

What a strange, interesting, fun, and nauseating weekend I had.

Friday night I went to church. Yep, church. Bishop Robinson from NH was in town and was speaking at my church so I decided to go and listen. I'm glad I did. He gave us some background and interesting highlights from the General Convention and his thoughts on all of the various machinations. He was warm, funny, smart, and just what you would want in a bishop I think. He did talk about how in the early days that gays and lesbians who were active, i.e. not celebite, were known in the chuch as "practicing gays." Everytime he said it, I wanted to laugh. "Practicing gays." Practicing for what? But let's just leave that. I did get tired of hearing the phrase, "gay men and lesbian women in loving, committed, and monogomous relationships." That's ten words instead of one: "married." Yikes. We talked about the potential schism in the church, and B033 which basically said that the Episcopal Church won't elect, nominate, etc any GLBT clergy. He talked about lifelong, out, GLBT members of the church voting for the bill while tears streamed down their faces becuase they felt they had to do this in order for our church to stay "in conversation" with the greater Anglican Community. His speech was sad, heartwrenching, funny, interesting, and hopeful. Yes hopeful.

As I walked back home, I kept thinking about the compromises we make everyday. Some of my friends want me to not be so invested/involved/not sure what the right word is with my parents. They say it out of love for me, and I appreciate their intentions. But I guess I'm willing to make some compromises to stay "in conversation" with my parents. I do think it's worth it, but I'm not going to stop living my life, or letting them know about my life and how I want them to be a part of it. I know eventually our conversation will be free flowing and loving. How do I know? Because I have faith.

Okay, enough deep stuff. On Saturday I went to my company picnic at King's Dominion. It was fun, but I kind of over did it. We hit 5 rollercoasters before lunch (including the free fall drop tower thing). When I got off the last rollercoaster, I was done. And we were just going to lunch. I ate, but it didn't really help my stomach and it was just brutally hot. So after lunch I kept trying to find cool places to hang out. I was just not feeling well at all. And there's nothing like being nauseous and hot. It was just not good.

Now, I haven't been to King's Dominion in a while and it was packed. Packed with all sorts of . . . well let's be charitable and say . . interesting people. What is the red neck version of Ebonics? I heard a lot of that, and a lot of ebonics. And apparently the urban gangsta look has made it's way to the Richmond area. Yikes, so unattractive. Though I will say that I did see a couple of thug boys who were kind of hot in a rough trade kind of way.

I didn't get home till almost 730PM and I immediately went to bed. I missed the closing night of Nation, but I was just still feeling really poorly. So I laid in bed with the fan on me and cranked the AC and just sort of vegged for a bit. When I woke up this AM, I almost felt human.

Anyways, today it was church, chores, laid out at the pool for a bit, and Greek Boy and I went to go see Dead Man's Chest. It was good, I liked it. Perfect summer escapist fare.

I'm off to Boston tomorrow for work and then a long weekend in Ptown. YEAH!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Three B's: Back, Beacon of Darkness, and the Borg


Back. Mine to be exact. It must be this getting old thing that I hear everyone complaining about. And I don't mind it as long as it happens to other people, but when it happens to moi? Then not so good. And I wish I knew what happened, but starting on Monday night, my back started to hurt me. My lower back. Near my kidneys. Which sort of freaked me out. Oh, and nothing like being in medium grade pain all of the time to turn me into Mr. Sunshine. Of course, I can't take any time off since I have major vacation plans later this summer, so I went into work anyways. Just not good. But it seems to have worked itself out, and I feel good again. I think it was a sprain or a pulled muscle. It kind of reminded me of this.

Beacon of Darkness. While I am a debbie downer sometime, I'm just an amateur compared to the Beacon of Darkness. One of my guys comes into my office every day and then just proceeds to just DUMP EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM IN THE WORLD ON MY DESK. With positive thoughts like: "Our software sucks." Or "You do that and you will just fail." Or my favorite: "It's just doomed." It's a great way to start your day, let me tell you. So, here's my deal. I really appreciate that we've discovered problems, challenges, etc. How about going that next step and actually help me come up with a solution to the problem? Or, does it just feel better to walk away after you've dumped on me?

The Borg. I met with the PM from this other company which is large, ever-present, and they all look alike so I call them the Borg. Dressed in their suits (usually blue with white shirts), their short cut hair with standard issue hair gell, they file out of the hive and swarm all over the DoD. I was meeting with him because he's basically pimping over one of my guys over. So we met to discuss and he would listen to my comments, think for a second, and say something like: "I hear what you're saying, but if you look at the bigger picture . . ." Hello. WHAT F&*KING BIGGER PICTURE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? You are screwing over one of my guys. What part of "Hell to the No" don't you understand. The funny thing is that we always joke that the Borg drones like to hear themselves talk and they basically just keep saying the same thing over and over again but just mixing the words around. It's like they get paid per word. So I just played the same game. Our meeting was 90 minutes long and he was trying to defend his really indefensible position, and I was just battering at him. I'm not sure I won the war, but I definitely won this battle. We'll see what he comes up with next.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

It's all about Natasha!

I am SO loving her right now.


First it was "Unwritten".


Then "Single".




And now it's all about "The One That Got Away"

Would you spare a minute?
Give me a single chance
To look in your eyes
Let me hold your hand
I want to get close enough
To read you
Understand you
Open up your heart
Open up your mind
Nobody needs another stalker in your life
I'm only here to help you learn to love me
To know me


I need a hook so you won't be the one that got away
I need a look that stuns you, makes you wanna stay
Don't wanna speak in case it comes out wrong
Don't wanna blink cause in a second you could be gone
I need a twist to help me to turn this story round
I need a bridge to cross this dangerous ground
Meet me in the middle like I want you to
I gotta find your heart to shoot my arrow through

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Almost Human

It's almost 6PM on a Sunday and I'm almost feeling human. I think the aspirin has finally kicked in. And no, my general feeling of ickiness has nothing to do with alcohol, but more with just being old.

Washington DC is slowly counting down the days till Nation is gone and replaced by a huge multi-level parking lot for the new baseball stadium. So this was the second to last Saturday night there and I went with a friend. It was okay. I really thought it would be more packed, but it was actually quite lame. I suspect most people were either still coming back from the beach or waiting for next Saturday night for the big blow out. I will say that I guess I know where the little go-go boys from Secrets went to. They were dancing on the little stages and boxes in their underwear. I looked at their little, tiny, effiminate, almost pre-pubescent bodies and thought: EAT SOMETHING!!! ANYTHING!!!! Dear God, there's a difference between having six pack abs and seeing ribs. It's not sexy. At all. Which also reminds me why I never really liked Secrets. It's because I like men. Not these barely legal waifs. So sad. My friend and I bounced back and forth from the main room to the blue room. The main room was full of the ever present techno beat with a few songs with words thrown in just to fool you. The blue room was playing good music when we first arrived, but later was a strange mix of foreign and hip hop music that left me feeling very old and very white. We left around 3AM.

And then of course I was up at 0730. I stayed in bed for a bit longer but really didn't sleep. Then got up and went to church. Which was good. Our Rector was at the General Convention and she gave a great sermon. I really love my church. But unfortunately they pretty much used all of the strength/energy I had today, so I've been curled up watching the first season of Project Runway on Bravo and trying to nap. If I wasn't feeling so icky, I would enjoy the general slothness of the day. Oh well. Now it's time for some work. Ugh.

Friday, July 07, 2006

It's Official: I'm a light weight

And I don't mean pounds, I mean alcohol. It's not quite 10PM on a Friday night and I've had 4 drinks and I'm pretty hammered. Caution: Drunk Blogging Begins.

The thing about Titan on Friday night is that it invariable is more bear, than muscle when it comes to happy hour. And I'm okay with that. "I'll start my diet tomorrow!" But in the mean time, I'm surrounded by hot, hair, and big men. Which is sometimes good, and sometimes bad. I did see a couple of folks I know. Or have read about. But the problem (or maybe the good thing) is that I know when I need to stop. I know when that fun little buzz is just couple of drinks away from praying to the procelein god all night. So I walked away. From the fun, from the men, to . . . . .

Whole Foods. Yes, in my judgement impaired state I hit Whole Foods at 945PM. Just in time to get something not quite good for me. Oh, I got the it food of the moment. I'll use it to replace the very carb heavy breakfasts from my Diet2Go plan. And thankfully they only had blueberry, so I got a couple. And at $2.59 per container, I think there are some high power drinks, or even drugs, that are cheaper than that. This stuff better be good or I'll be pissed. But in an obvious attempt to sabotage any diet effort, I also got the Black Forrest Parfait. It's DELICIOUS! And so much better than the sex I wasn't going to get anyways. ; )

Apparently I can't even troll for sex anymore. Apparently there are all these rules now. What a bummer. So I think I'm just going to curl up with my parfait and Battlestar Galactica (how butch is that!) and just drift off to sleep.

To paraphrase Hemingway, "Ask not for whom the gym calls, it calls to thee!"

Night all. Sweet dreams!

Don't Buy Cheap Dental Floss

I know this should be a big "Duh." I just don't know what I was thinking.

First off I should say, yes, I'm a flosser. I'm not sure if I finally got tired of lying to the dental hygenist, or if the semi-annual cleanings were just too painful at some point, but I've gotten into the routine of flossing and it really is a good thing.

I've been using this wide, waxed, dental floss with a fresh minty taste and it's worked quite well. But then I ran out and so I traipsed over to my local CVS to get some more. The dental floss I used was almost $5. And there was the nice shining generic brand for a $1.25. And I'm usually not a cheap skate at all. But I figured, hey, it's dental floss. It's not like I'm buying generic medicine or Oreos, or anything important like that. "They" always same that buying generic is just like buying the name brand. But "they" were wrong.

This AM I started to floss and it was unbelievable. It was like trying to floss with fishing wire. Can you say "Ow!" It was this little skinny piece of plastic string that had no wax, no minty taste, and kept jamming into my sensitive gums as I tried to floss. It was not a good thing.

Lesson Learned. Don't buy cheap dental floss.

So ends today's consumer tip! Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

"Love Them Anyway"

As I'm still thinking through my last trip to CO, I'm also thinking about the current upheaval in the Episcopal Church and it almost seems like they are related. I liked the analogy made at Father Jake's about how the current situation in the church is like coming out. I'm definitely stuck in stage three with my parents.



I alternate between wanting to just acquiese to them and wanting to just argu with them. I can't figure it out and I'm almost trying to do both at the same time and it's not working and it's not helping me.



So I've been doing some thinking. And some reading. I've been reading a lot of religous blogs lately and I found the sermon that Bishop Robinson gave during the last General Convention. Needless to say I've been thinking about it a lot.



We are family (mine and the Anglican Communion). We were created by God and God loves us all. We aren't enemies. We're just friends who haven't figured out a way to communicate properly yet. We haven't figured out a way to reach a common understanding on an issue that is important, but pales in comparison to the love we have for each other, and for God. We shouldn't stop trying to communicate, but we need to keep trying in a calm, loving, manner to help our friends, our neighbors, understand that God loves us all. What should we do when we are called "disgusting or revolting" or "a cancerous lump" or worse, we should Love Them Anyways.



A couple of years ago I went to a photo exhibit at the Corcoran. It was an exhibit of pictures taken during/after 9/11. The room was big and it was covered in pictures. No graceful spacing, no special lighting, no open spaces at all. Starting at about a foot off the floor to about 10 feet up, there were row after rows of pictures. Pictures were hung across the room on wires from wall to wall that carried more pictures. It was wonderful, heartrending, and just overwhelming. And the one picture that I member, of all of those thousands of pictures, is just a man wearing a T-shirt. And written on the t-shirt it said:

Love Thy Neighbor

Love Thy Black Neighbor

Love Thy Gay Neighbor

Love Thy Muslim Neighbor

Love Thy Disabled Neighbor

Love Thy Homeless Neighbor

Love Thy Asian Neighbor

Love Thy HIV+ Neighbor

Love Thy Hispanic Neighbor

Love Thy Neighbor





p.s. I promise an up, lite, funny posting soon.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

If You Have Time To Spare, Travel By Air

I'm starting off with a bad attitude so no matter what happens, I'll be ready for it.

I'm at the COS airport early. No line on the 4th of July, I know, what a shocker. And I'm taking advantage of their free Wifi. Did you hear that National? Did you hear that Ohare? FREE WIFI!!! It just kills me that a rinky-dinky airport like COS has free Wi-Fi, but National and Ohare, don't.

So while I'm sitting here, I'm doing my usual people watching. On my flight out here it was better. DCA was full of the interesting mix of business people, people going on vacation, and then people going to visit families (which is not necessarily a vacation!). Dallas was a bit more interesting. Now I know why I avoid Texas if possible. Lots of families, lots of big families. I almost felt sad for the little girl, skinny as a rail, trailing behind her very heavy families. Kind of sad really. On my flight from Dallas to COS, I did see quite a few military hotties. COS has a large military presences, so it makes sense. There was one who was just HOT, sleeveless shirt that showed off his muscular arm and nice tattoo. Yum. Unfortunately, as the baggage carusel I saw Suddenly Sluttly Suzi wrap herself around him. Hello honey, you know they do sell bras, don't you? I'm sure your BF was glad to see so much of your chest, but for the rest of us, not so much. There were some other hotties, but my bag was one of the first ones out, so I bailed pretty quickly.

In theory I should be back in DC around 5PMish. In time to start a load of laundry, hit the soviet safeway, and then maybe go for a run. I'm not sure what I'm doing for the fireworks. After sleeping on the modern day equivalent of a bed of nails, I'm thinking sleep sounds good. We'll see.

Monday, July 03, 2006

All In The Family - Anglican Style

So we went to church as a family yesterday. This was the church I went to when I was in high school, so I thought I knew what to expect. Well, sort of. It's gone very high church in the last decade or so. No incense, but I wouldn't be surprised if they start to use it soon. Who has a "Verger" anyways these days? Since it was the service before the 4th of July, we sang several patriotic songs, including "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" which is the Navy hymn. So that was cool. What was not cool was the sermon.

I struggled to stay silent and listen to the words that were coming down from the pulpit as if they were the word of God. The rector called out against the "godless liberalism" that is rampant in our society and the "tryanny of the minority". He said that the church should be more proactive in government and politics and that the media shouldn't be publishing secrets. He talked about how individual rights weren't/shouldn't be superior to the rights of the community. It was just a very harsh, political, sermon. And I kept thinking, what about talking about how Jesus would feel about the war? About how the US send prisoners to foreign countries to be tortured? About how millions of more people now live below the poverty line? About how Jesus would feel about the immigration issue facing the US and how he would address it?

Needless to say, some of his comments were directly related to the ongoing struggle within the Anglican Communion around the world. I've been reading a lot of religious blogs lately to catch a lot of the nuances that I wouldn't otherwise get. In the Post today, it's clear that some dioceses are going to revolt against the new Bishop-elect. And in the mean time, our fellow Anglicans in Kenya are referring to the US Episcopal church as a "cancerous lump" that should be excised due to our decision to elect a gay, and now a woman, bishop. If I weren't a Christian, I would say that people who live in glass houses with multiples wives (also against biblical teachings) shouldn't throw stones. And this is despite the fact that at the General Convention, the US Episcopal Church pretty much threw the LGBT community under the bus and said that they wouldn't elect any more bishops that would upset the greater worldwide Anglican Community. I think a lot of people voted for it thinking that it was the only way to keep the Anglican Communion together as a whole. Unfortunately, I'm just not sure that's possible. I think the only thing that would have satisfied the ultra conservatives would have been to have Bishop Robinson removed/deposed. And that just wasn't going to happen. And with every new announcement from the conservative Anglicans here in the US and abroad, it's getting clearer that a schism is coming and no amount of appeasement is going to prevent it.

Which brings me to the bumpersticker of the day:

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Welcome to Denial, Colorado

So I had made plans to go home to Colorado before the latest salvos between my Dad and me. My sister and her family were going to head to Colorado to visit the respective families before they moved to Paris. So I figured that I would come home at the same time. I would give me a chance to visit with my sister, niece, and nephew, and see my parents as well.

After the last couple of letters between me and my Dad, I had started to dread the trip. I didn't want to do anything to ruin the trip, to get into any big arguments, to cause any scenes. I mean, we are episcopalians after all, we just don't do that type of thing. So I was wondering how this was all going to play out.

I got in late Friday night and so when I walked into the kitchen at the crack of dawn on Saturday, I definitely surprised my parents and they were definitely glad to see me. But make no mistake, it's all about denial:

- denial that I'm gay.
- denial that my Mom still smokes
- denial that my Dad doesn't accept me
- denial that my brother in law drinks a little bit too much

I've made some gay-like (and gay-lite) comments around my sister and Mom, and the subject's been changed pretty quickly. Dad hasn't mentioned a word about the exchange of letters between us. So it's all kind of surreal.

But I'm going with the flow for now. But in the back of my mind, I wonder if all of this denial, all of this self censorship, is just pushing me back into the closet.