In the Family Way

Well, well, well.  Times have changed, haven’t they?  I’d say I didn’t know what caused it, but I do.  It’s all this pure countryside living.  Either that or the fertility clinic we went to this summer.  I know, I didn’t tell you it was coming.  Think of it this way, we didn’t really tell anyone.  Not even our parents.  Okay, ESPECIALLY not our parents. And now we’re in trouble, knocked up, in a delicate condition, pregnant.

D, in particular is pregnant, but isn’t that what you say?  We’re pregnant?  It’s amazing how early a woman’s body quickly belongs to the collective once she’s bearing a child.  I give myself a good mental smack every time I think it in an effort to psychologically give her her body back, but I’m thwarted at every turn.  For example, several people took the liberty of hugging us today when shared the news.  This is work folks, we are colleagues, we don’t hug.  Don’t even get me started on the way many pregnancy books manage to marginalize both the mother and any partner she has that isn’t her straight, American, husband.  Like I said, don’t get me started.

You might have questions.  How, in fact, did two hot, sexy women such as yourselves manage to conceive the miracle of life? We selected sperm from a bank, we shipped it to a doctor, he injected it into her uterus twice (once in August and once in September), she got pregnant.  Here’s what we didn’t do: we did not tell our other “trying” friends the number of our donor (I’ve heard that occurs), we did not take any fertility drugs and we did not tell people we were attempting to fertilize an egg.

Honestly, we’re still a little queasy about the idea of thwarting evolution at all, but have opted to become glassy-eyed with baby thoughts instead of considering the damage we’ve done to the human race by electing to use artificial means of conception.  Well, she’s queasy for entirely different reasons.  So, details: she’s 13 weeks, due in late June, we’re not going to find out the sex, and I won’t be numbing your eyes with baby chat here.

Two things – check out the page at the top titled “Plus One”.  If baby talk is your thing you can find me at Counting Chickens.  That’s it for this pregnancy public service announcement.

Points for not shunning me.

Twinkle Twinkle

I’ve never lived in a house of my own.  I’ve never lived in an actual house as an adult and I had no idea there was such baggage attached.  No, it isn’t the responsibility of the mortgage payment.  It’s not changing the air filters or mowing the lawn.  It isn’t getting to walk around naked with all the blinds open and then remembering you have nosy neighbors.

No one told me about the pressure around the holidays.

People, I thought the excessive stars and stripes on July 4th were over the top.  First one house, then another and soon practically every brick ranch had a flag streaming in the wind.  Shiny ones and heavy cloth ones.  Big ones and ones with satiny gold trim.  Some houses even took the extra step to jam into the ground some sort of cartoony independence day flag with fireworks emblazoned on it.  I didn’t see it as a competition then, oh no.  Just a friendly little (okay, big) show of spirited decor.  Ho, ho!  We’re all such patriotic pals!

That was this summer.  Now, it’s a whole new ball game and it’s an all-stars invitational.

First, I saw a few single candle lights appear in a few, isolated windows.  How cute, I thought.  How very Virginian.  Then it snowed.  Oh, it was beautiful.  Trees popped up in warm, glowing living rooms.  Decorations sparkled and tiny lights twinkled from deep inside evergreen bows.  We were with them.  Our tree is evergreen (because it’s plastic) and a weird assortment of sentimental ornaments jangle on the branches.  In our neighborhood, I suspect the trappings of religion are tucked away behind the shower of lights but the outward focus is less religion and more padding the pockets of the electric company.  I’m sorry, I mean celebration of the season.

Lest I sound like a grinch, I’ll reveal that I grew up in a decorated house.  My father put his light-based spirit on the outside and my mother spewed crazy on the inside.  No surprise there.  So we had strings of lights on the eaves with big, fat colored bulbs.  And that was it.  My father was more interested in using our limited cash for presents than lighting up the neighborhood.  I’ll admit I was jealous of the sparkling string of blue lights across the street, the fake snowman on the lawn down the way and the blinking extravaganza next-door that lit my bedroom like sunshine.

I didn’t realize the pressure he was under.  Every night, D and I drive home and there are more light displays.  Just tonight there were four new nets of lights draped over round bushes.  Red velvet bows are casting shadows on boughs of green wound around stairwell banisters and wreaths tacked on front doors.  There is our dark house, sitting quietly amid the commotion.  Like my father, we weighed our options and sided with the minimum.  A tree makes my wife happy and gives off enough heat that I can lower the heat a few more degrees.  I’m kidding!  Sort of…

Is it like this in your neighborhood?  Is there a burgeoning sense of guilt as the neighbors dip their properties into sparkles, lights and inflatable santas patting white wire deer?  I know you’ve seen those deer.  This isn’t the sort of neighborhood you’d drive through just to see the lights, but it has its fair share of people who wished they lived there.  I’m glad they don’t though.  Because here, I can make sure they stand out.

Not Flying

If you asked me what sort of family I come from, I’d say “close”.  Maybe even “very close”.  Yes, one sister is a crackpot (and that goes for all of us – I’m sure I’m someone else’s crackpot) and my mother never tells us anything (“oh honey, that dog’s been dead for months now”) but we’re close enough that we share gales of laughter together.  We’d do it more often if they lived closer, but we’re on the east coast and they are…well, not.

Both sisters and my parents (and every last stitch of extended family) are a plane flight away.  This wasn’t a problem ten years ago.  I flew everywhere.  San Francisco on the weekend, Johannesburg, London, Rio.  In the pre-TSA days, my mother dumped me onto planes from five forward, just to fly to see my grandparents.  Alone.  Suffice to say, I’ve been around the aviation block.

Somewhere in all of this, I lost the traveling bug.  I’d much rather drive than fly and really, I’d rather stay nearby.  As time goes by, it’s less “I’d rather not fly” and more “I’m avoiding flying”. I’m not afraid of crashing, through frankly, it seems a much more reasonable fear than it used to be.  It’s more the restriction of personal freedom on a public conveyance.  If I need to use the bathroom, I will (as long as it’s safe).  I’d like to be able to move my arms (even as a skinny little kid my shoulders hit the edges of the seat and I’m not doing any better now).  I’m not a fan of being sprayed down with disinfectant in a sealed plane (never happened to you?  Be thankful).  But mostly, I don’t want to spend hours without air on a hot piece of pavement.

No, really.  I’m Tucson born and so I’m familiar with the particular form of torture that comes with onboard idling, cabin power off, in summer heat.  There have been times I’ve sat there so long, breathing so much stale air that the world got grey on the edges.  I’ve had flight crews apologize (though they no longer seem to) for sealing the flight up and letting it toast in the sun but acknowledge that due to another plane with a problem, power problems with our own or downright aviation orneriness, that no one was going to get a breath in edgewise til the plane took off.  I’ve been trapped off of planes, too.  Once, in Miami, they cleared everyone into a gate for a Brazil-bound flight, shut the security gates behind us and closed the airport.  The bathrooms and water fountains were on the other side of the gate.  That was a very long six hours.  It also was before TSA.

I’ve already put off going to see my sisters this year, but I would have eventually given in and bought a plane ticket next year.  Now I’m not so sure. The fact that Congress has to legislate to allow people to disembark in a common sense situation is ridiculous.  Congress, please spend your time making laws protecting me from being fired because I’m gay.  Better still, get around to kicking DOMA back under the rock from whence it came.  It is unbelievable that existing laws require additional legislation to ensure human compassion.

Will we fly again?  Of course, but not without dread.  Will we forgo trips to Paris in favor of trips to Nantucket?  Yes.  Will we drive every chance we get?  Yes.  Because I would rather further subsidize foreign oil for my individual conveyance and sacrific oodles of vacation time than have to sit next to you in a tiny little steel case breathing the same air for hours on end while slowly choking on my own claustrophobia and dripping sweat.  No offense.

Seperate Toilets

It seems a little unreal that domestic partners employed by the federal government will have some benefits.  I have confidence that, eventually, it will as illegal to discriminate against gay individuals as it is to discriminate based on age or gender.  There’s no perfect world and discrimination still happens to all kinds of people all the time, but I look forward to the day when it isn’t sanctioned by the government.

For a second, I thought I might regret leaving the State Department in light of this change and the almost certain extension of more benefits by the Secretary of State.  But I don’t.  I don’t regret leaving for a second.  It was no longer the right job and the limited benefits wouldn’t make up for that.  Unfortunately, I’m confident that the good state of Virginia is unlikely to get on the progressive bandwagon anytime soon.

The whole thing leaves me feeling a little hopeless and unsettled.  It seems like no one is able to make change.  The President says it’s beyond his ability to change and if left to the general public, I’m afraid a vote would be to maintain the status quo.

At Capital Pride Sunday I watched a man my age walking with his pretty wife, their young baby and the baby’s grandmother tell his family that they could not use the restrooms in the area because (hushed whisper) “Look at that sign” (pointing to Pride banner) “we can’t go over there”.  I couldn’t tell if he was afraid they might catch something, sheer discrimination, or fear that we might tar and feather them.  Seperate toilets.  Great.

Director of General Chaos

At some point, I’m going to write about the recent events at my place of employment.  The edge of fist fights, sworn comrades mocking one another, mother ripped from infants, love, grief. 

But not tonight.

Today, the man whose fault it is or the man who’s going to take the fall for the woman whose fault it is patted my arm as he walked past smiling.  I nearly kicked him in his teeth.  How’s my week going?  Terribly, thank you.  When are you going to “volunteer” to serve in Iraq?

No bonus points for deciphering.  Be patient and the words will come. 

Customer Loyalty

I’ve been a customer with Working Assets for 10 years.  Of course I had forgotten this (yes, I knew it was a long time, but not that long) when I called to update my billing information.  The customer service rep nicely talked through my update with me and then offered me a phone, free, for being a loyal customer.  I’ve had the old one for just over a year and it works fine, though it does sometimes forget to tell me I have voicemail.  But sure, I’ll take a free camera flip phone, thanks!

I’ve though about leaving Working Assets once or twice, for a Verizon family plan or some other sort of savings system.  In the end, it turns out that my 10 years worth of loyalty and the donations to eco-sensitive, gay-friendly, human rights organizations while acting as a political force on my behalf are too much to compromise.  Who knew I’d get integrity in my old age?