Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Hot Dog, We're On the Road

Update, Addiverse friends: the alphabet soup presentation went swimmingly. If you've ever given a presentation or taught a class, you know that some days are better than others--the wife calls it "being off your game" when it doesn't go as well as previous lessons/lectures/presentations. I can confidently say that I was on my game that day. Thank you, baby Jesus--I love when that happens.

Before my head gets too big and explodes all over the Addiverse, I best move on to the topic at hand: being on the road. The wife and I have been traveling, taking two road trips as part of our summer antics. I love June. It is by far my favorite month of the year. As far as I'm concerned, it's the perfect time to travel--the days are super-long, the bugs aren't as big as airplanes yet, the height of the summer season hasn't crashed upon us yet, things are still green and pretty and lush.

Our first trip was to the north woods of the Cheddarlands for a wedding.
We made a two-car convoy and made sure eight people and their luggage got to the church on time. We stayed in a cabin on a little lake, safely tucked in what I attest was the middle of nowhere.

It was so nowhere that I thought we were in Minnesota but later learned we were in Wisconsin. Now, THAT's nowhere!

As the wife and I do not stay anywhere without indoor plumbing, it is safe for you to assume that there was indoor plumbing. It is also safe to assume that we did not stay somewhere rustic. We don't do rustic. Rustic is a three star hotel.

It was beautiful, fun was had by all and the brides looked stunning.....although, I must say that offering to stay in the bunk beds so others could have the full sized beds was a bad idea--note to self: before acting selflessly, consult with the wife.

I will offer that the food truck was amazing. You know I am all about the food. I liked that the tapas-spewing truck featured a masked wrestler. How could I resist doing an imitation?

Okay, so that's a napkin on my face. This was a spontaneous happening. One does what one must do.

The second leg of our trip consisted of jumping in the Gaybors' car and heading to Kansas City. No food truck was featured but I can attest that much food was consumed.

If you've never been to Kansas City, I say: go. I have never been to a friendlier place....and, it was mighty tasty to boot. The friendliness bordered on being over-the-top ridiculous. Everyone smiles at you, says hi, is polite. Cars stop on a dime when you step off the curb. People let each other "in" when leaving a parking lot after a big event. People said, "excuse me" and "thank you" and "after you." It was kind of freaky at times. Try as we might, we really couldn't find anyone blatantly mean, grumpy or rude.

It was kinda like being at Disneyworld, where all the workers are fun and friendly and smiley and helpful and drinking the Mickey kool-aid. Well, maybe more like two Disneyworlds at one time--after all, there are TWO Kansas Cities. (I'll stick to the one in Missouri, no offense to Kansas.)

I'm sure everything is not sunshine and rainbows in KC but they did a good job hiding the yuckies while we were there. For instance, there were a whole lot of homeless people in Kansas City but even they looked pretty happy and certainly didn't interfere with our fun.

The food. Oh, the food. You may think Kansas City is all about meat products. Vegetarians, do not be afraid to enter the land of carnivores! I had the best, and I mean THE BEST veggie burger I've ever had in my entire life while in Kansas City.

The wife asked for a bite. She did not get a bite. I was not sharing this work of art.

I cannot describe what makes something the best. It is something that must be experienced. It cannot be put into words. The gaybors were stunned--I did not utter one word during dinner as I was too busy being enveloped in this most delicious culinary orgasm.

If that wasn't enough....the next day, I enjoyed what was BY FAR the best veggie dog I've ever had in my life. I dare not exaggerate. One does not exaggerate about a veggie dog, as those things aren't exactly tasty tidbits of healthy living. We were at a Royals game (front row, behind the dug out, baby!) and I thought it'd be worth a gander to see if they had veggie dogs. There's nothing like a hot dog at a ball game, so I was mighty happy to see they were selling veggie dogs AND there was YELLOW mustard, not that stupid brown mustard. (Dang cheeseheads, always using brown mustard. What is wrong with you?) There was no one ever in line at the concession stand, so there was never any waiting. It was like having your very own concession worker. I'm telling ya, it was weirdly wonderful.

When I ordered the veggie dog, I saw a bit of concern cross the cashier's face. "It'll take 15 minutes for a veggie dog." Since I wasn't in a hurry and I wasn't starving and as I was in a good mood from all this friendliness, I had no issue waiting. For the record, it only took 10 minutes. Usually, people nuke a veggie dog and call it a day. Not this place. They carefully placed it on a grill (most definitely tainted by some meat-by-product-laden sausage of one type or another) and cooked it the old fashioned way. It was bigger than your standard "are you kidding" small, chemical-looking veggie dog--in fact, it spilled over both sides of the bun--so, that made it even MORE worth the wait. I smothered that puppy in yellow mustard, took a bite and....

....I swear a tear came to my eye.

Never has a tastier veggie hot dog crossed these lips. I doubt another one ever will.

(One should never think too long about hot dogs, even veggie ones. For the "real" thing: Parts is parts and really no one knows what parts are parts of those parts. For the veggie kind, it's a long list of chemicals used on chemicals to make a fake chemical product. The truth hurts.)

Kansas City offers lots of sight-seeing, plenty of shopping, varied professional-level sporting teams (soccer, football and baseball, just to name a few), a city market and even gambling (if you don't mind hanging out on a smoky river boat). It seemed to be clean for a larger-sized city. We didn't run into any traffic jams and we never had any trouble with parking (a huge bone of contention for me). I suppose I could whine about the hotel staff but why bother?

I sound like a damn commercial. I guess I had a good time.

I'm not sure if it's kid-friendly, as we didn't have any kids with us nor did I pay attention to that kind of thing. They do have Dunkin' Donuts, so that greatly improves its overall score. The wife was impressed that they had a Church's Chicken (a story for a different day) and the gaybors were pleased to see a Jack in the Box. (Obviously, we do not have such places where we live.) The taxes on our purchases kinda sucked (almost 10% on the clothes I scored at the outlet mall), but that's not much to complain about when surrounded by such nice people. We did see some of the "more-poverty-ridden" areas, so it's not all so shiny and bubbly. It was super hot and I'm guessing they have a pretty hot and steamy summer year after year. I can't speak about if it's dog-friendly or not, as we didn't have the dogs along for the trip and we really didn't see that many dogs.....

....well, except for at the ball game, as it was "Bark at the Park" when we were there. There were dogs everywhere. Dogs got to walk the stadium warning track, hang out with their friends and even stay for the game. It was blazing hot (90 degrees at the start of the game, got hotter as the game went on), so I'm thinking there were hot dogs, veggie dogs AND very hot, four-legged dogs.

Any city that has veggie dogs and dog days at the ball park is okay with me.

The icing on the cake? Taking a potty break at the "World's Largest Truck Stop" on the way home." If you see something called the "world's largest," you should ALWAYS stop and take a gander. Always.

It was pretty impressive, especially for a truck stop. I find it hard to believe it is the WORLD'S largest, as it's a pretty big world out there, but who am I to argue? It seemed pretty large. I was able to pee as well as purchase some coffee, oatmeal and other sugar-laden products. I could have purchased a new outfit, a state-themed thimble, a sundae or even a VHS. I admit to being rather giddy while stopping at this place.....

Bottom line: Give me a road trip, the world's largest anything and a yellow mustard-smothered veggie dog and I'm good to go.

Just keep that brown mustard far away from me.....and, don't offer to take the bunk beds without talking first to the wife.





Monday, June 16, 2014

Alphabet Soup

Being the professional queer that I am, I've been asked to do a presentation for a local organization. I'm used to speaking on many a topic and enjoy the opportunity to yip in front of others, so this request wasn't really a surprise. It's been a while since I've spoken on this topic, so I knew some preparation would be needed. In an effort to make sure I'm still at least a wee bit relevant, I decided to ask a younger co-worker for some input. Suffice it to say she is over a quarter of a century younger than me; thus, I thought she might be able to balance my potentially-severely outdated information.

After talking to her for only a few minutes, I realize: hot damn, I'm older than I thought. I'm still swimming through that alphabet soup that youngster poured on top of my head. I'm not sure I know what the hell she was talking about and I'm less confident about speaking in front of the group.

Me: "Hey, can I ask you a few questions? I'm doing a talk for [insert name of organization here] next week on working with the gay and lesbian population in the counseling setting."

[If you are wondering why I chose her to be my reference source, suffice it to say she has made it quite well known that she wants to work with the GLBTIQ-EIEIOetc community and she has a girlfriend. I figured that qualified her in some capacity.]

Alphabet Soup Grrrrl (now to be known as ASG): Looks VERY excited. "Sure!

Me: "I thought I better ask--I don't want to provide outdated information."

ASG: looks at me quizzically.  "Okay." She sits down at the table, all smiles.

Me: "I'm going to talk about provided counseling to the GL...GB....LGB....aw hell, I don't know the letters....you know what I mean."

ASG: "L-G-B-T-I-Q-A?"

Me: "Yeah, that sounds about right." (Long pause)  "I-Q-A?:

ASG: (tips head to side, seemingly to ponder if I'm teasing her or not): "Intersexed, questioning, asexual."

Me: "Oh!"  [I think to myself--I thought the "A" was for "ally." See what I know?"

ASG: "I refer to it as alphabet soup."

Me: "Well, that makes total sense to me. Alphabet soup. And, you? What letter are you in the soup?"

ASG: "I refer to myself as blind."

Me:  (stare at her. This is a new one on me. Please tell me the "B" stands for "bisexual," not blind because I do not know what the hell she is talking about.) "Blind?"

ASG: "I'm blind to all that. I'm blind to sexual orientation, gender, gender identity. I'm blind to labels."

Me: "Blind."

ASG: "Blind."

This leads to an in-depth discussion about things of which I've only seen on various tabloids or Oprah's network...she's babbling about pansexual, pansgendered, Cisgender, asexual, transgendered, omnigendered, omnisexual (which, as far as I can tell is the same or at least really close to meaning the same thing as pansexual), transexual, transvestite, blah blah blah. My head is spinning.

I'm still stuck on the fact that she calls herself blind.

I consider how this is a label to say she doesn't see labels, which is a label in itself. 

It then dawns on me. I can't resist asking: "Do you know who Melissa Etheridge is?"

ASG: "No." (silence as she's thinking) "Melissa who?"

Me: "What about the Indigo Girls?

ASG: (blank stare)

Me: "What kind of lesbian are you?"

As soon as I say this, I remember she is blind and has yet to identify herself to me as a lesbian. Even so, if she is sleeping with a woman, I think it's her obligation to know who Melissa Etheridge is.

Me: "Okay, so how did you meet your--er--the person you're dating?

ASG: "On match.com."

Me:  (Wow. I am old, old, old. Who knew you could find a same-sex date on a website?) "Not on a softball field?"

I crack myself up. She doesn't look quite as amused as I feel. I can tell I'm on the verge of insulting her.

ASG: "I play rugby."

Me: "Huh. Rugby. I've never played rugby.  (pause, consider the alphabet)  "I can't tell who's gay and not gay anymore. It used to be so easy. Now every girl on the planet has long hair and wears pony tails and has those headband things."

Try to explain this statement to a blind 25 year old. Try to explain stereotypes so they sound like an okay thing, not a horrible thing. I do a lousy job at doing this. The more I talk, the deeper the hole I dig.

Me: I decide to go old school. "Um, so does stone butch mean anything to you? What about bears? Do you know about bears?"

I can tell she is thinking about the Chicago Bears.

ASG: "Well, I have heard of butch and fem."

Me: (sigh. No, no, no. This is not where I was going and this is certainly not what I hope she thinks the old people are thinking about.) "Please tell me you know who Ellen DeGeneres is."

ASG: (gets a big smile--her face lights up) "I love Ellen!"

Thank god we have at least that much in common. I decide this is a very good place to stop.

I'm going to pray that my audience is filled with a bunch of old people, not blind people...unless they are blind-blind, as in really blind (like our dog). I have no prayer if a bunch of youngsters are staring at me.

If nothing else, I can dance like Ellen. Everyone--no matter their place in the alphabet soup--loves Ellen.

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P.S. I've got to get this girl to listen to Melissa Etheridge. It's my obligation to the community. I must save her from her certain doom.
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Thursday, June 05, 2014

Convertulations

Now that the conversion has been completed, I thought I'd share the play-by-play. I dedicate this to anyone who is feeling left out. We had no idea anyone would think twice about this conversion. You didn't miss anything. I swear.

Monday, June 2nd rolled around. I went to work as usual and the wife stayed home to lounge around in her pajamas and fuzzy pink slippers.

Maybe not. I did go to work but the wife does not lounge nor does she own pink slippers. The wife is never one to lounge. I can't even picture her lounging.

Monday, June 2nd rolls=ed around. It was the first weekday that conversions of civil unions can be converted into marriage within the great state of Illinois. The wife and I have yet to decide when we are going to get converted. The wife decided to spend the day cleaning the gutters and I go to work.

While I'm sitting at my desk (and the wife is on a ladder at home, pulling disgusting chunks of unidentified wild life out of the gutters), I began to get antsy. I can't stop thinking about getting married. I'm wondering why we didn't pick a date. I'm wondering why I thought not going today was a good idea. I'm wondering when we are going to go. I'm wondering why we can go at this very moment.

Monday, June 2nd rolled around and I can't work because I'm too busy thinking about getting converted. The more I think about it, the more antsy I get. How the heck am I suppose to listen to people talk about their woes when all I can think of is getting converted?

I decide to go home for lunch; after all, I have to eat some time and I have to make sure the wife hasn't tumbled off the ladder. I zip through the fourteen minute drive and return home to find the wife standing on a ladder, still cleaning the gutters.

It's a big project.

I want to tell her, not ask, about conversion....which is not a good idea--one should ask, not tell, when it comes to converting....but, you know how I roll. I stare at her, smiling. I am a nervous wreck because I can't stand waiting one more minute. She's on the ladder wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

Monday, June 2nd rolled around and I wanted to get converted. I don't want to wait. I'm not sure I can wait. After all, I NEVER thought I'd see the chance for conversion in my lifetime. Never. Why am I going to wait for something like this? What is wrong with right now?

I ask her if she will go get converted. She asks if she can change her clothes. I say "no." Who cares what we're wearing? She protests--after all, she's been cleaning gutters all morning and it's a billion degrees out by now. She's wearing a gutter-blobbed, sweaty t-shirt and some shorts. The wife points this out. I tell her I don't care, as this is the real us. No one is going to see us or take our photo or write an article about our wardrobe choices for the conversion.

I do not give her time to change her clothes.

I drive us to the county clerk's office. There is no one else around--no line of gay people trying to convert, no line of protesters, no line of photographers. We were even able to get a parking space right in front of the door. We enter the building and stare at one of the people behind the desk.

Clerk Minion: "Can I help you?"

Me: "We're here to convert our civil union to marriage."

Clerk Minion: "Are you Maria?"

Me: [confused look]. "Um, no."

Clerk Minion: "Maria?"

Me: "Huh?"

Clerk Minion [looks at wife]: "Are you Maria? The 1:30 appointment?"

The wife: shakes her head in a "no" fashion.

Clerk Minion: "what time is your appointment?"

Me: [internal panic. Appointment? What appointment? Dang it! I called Friday! That's it--I will tell her I called on Friday because I did.] "I called on Friday. They said we didn't need an appointment to convert our civil union in to a marriage."

Two other clerk minions stop working and look up at the three of us. I can tell they are watching to see what our personal clerk minion is going to do. They aren't smiling--they are staring, serious looks etched across their desk-tied beings.

I can tell the Clerk Minion is annoyed but I can't tell if it is because we don't have an appointment or because neither one of us is Maria. (For the record, Maria is late. It's 1:40 PM and her appointment was 1:30 PM. Screw Maria. I can be Maria if that will help.)

I figure she is going to send us on her way.

Clerk Minion: "So, you want to convert your civil union to a marriage. Is that right?"

Me: Yes!

I sense the Clerk Minion is experiencing an internal war--should she help us or tell us to come back? Her peers are still watching.

Clerk Minion: "We're booked through the entire week."

Me: [heart sinks but I refuse to give in that easily. I put our license on the counter.] "I have our civil union license, if that will help."

The skies part, the baby Jesus swoops down upon us and the Clerk Minion decides she will do this. She will convert us, appointment be damned. Thank you, Maria for missing your appointment!

The Clerk Minion looks at civil union license, starts to confirm the information in the computer, starts entering some data, talking aloud the entire way. She's giggling as she reviews this and that. We can't tell if she's laughing because she's nervous, because she's never done this before, if she's enjoying the process, if someone is tickling her from under the counter, if she's been drinking or if she's happy someone is converted.

Clerk Minion: "Let's see--you want to keep your civil union date, right?"

Me: "Right!"

Clerk Minion: [still talking to self, aloud] "June 21, 2012. Okay..."

Me: "Um, 2011."

Clerk Minion looks up, puzzled.

Me: "Our civil union was in 2011."

Clerk Minion:  [looks at me, then looks at the computer screen. She is laughing even more now.] "Thank goodness I'm talking out loud! Let me see if I have the right people!"

Clerk minion realizes she is entering the wrong date. With a few clicks on the keyboard, we are transported to 2011.

She hits the "print" button and wa-la. We are now converted.

She hands us the license, which looks identical to the civil union license except for "civil union" has been replaced with the word "marriage." That's it. That is the only change. Our marriage date is the same as our civil union date.

Although we are standing in front of the Clerk minion on June 2, 2014, we are magically married as of June 21, 2011.

No fanfare. No filling out of forms. No cost. No throwing of rice. No need for a witness. Clerk Minion didn't even look at our driver's licenses. This is the actual license--we don't even have to wait for the thing to arrive in the mail. It's right here, in my hands.

I thank her for allowing us to convert without an appointment. She's still giggling.

The wife high five and return home. I decide to take four hours of vacation time so I don't have to work for the rest of the day and the wife returns to cleaning the gutters. We are so romantic, don't you think?

We decide to do what the rest of the world now does to announce the big things in life: We change our status on Facebook.

I'm not kidding.

That's how the real world works these days. Relationship status is not real until it's been posted on Facebook.

We hadn't told a soul about doing this on this day because we hadn't planned on doing it on this day. We hadn't picked a date at all. We hadn't told anyone anything because there was nothing to tell. The wife was cleaning the gutters and I was at work, for Pete's sake. Besides, are we really going to call everyone and say, "Hi, we're getting converted today?" No. We are not going to do this, for many reasons.

The comments and "likes" started flying in. It was magical and very confirming.  This conversion thing is going well. I start to think it's rather pathetic that we are using Facebook to announce such a monumental event but it is a great way to alert the masses. Who has time for calls and texts when there is Facebook?

Hell, even cheerleaders from high school are giving us the hive fives of Facebook. Thank you, allies. We would not be converted if it weren't for people like you.

Suffice it to say some people do not "like" or comment on the relationship status change post. The wife is very saddened to see a particular someone (who shall remain anonymous) has not acknowledged the status change. Volumes is "said" by this. It is not a surprise but it still hurts the wife, nonetheless. We talk about how some people will NOT be happy to hear we are married, as they are opposed to gay marriage. It's ruining the sanctity of their marriage. The person who has not commented would not be in favor of our conversion, so it is telling, this silence of hers.

We decide to ignore her and savor the hundreds of "likes" our relationship status has received in such a short amount of time.  We can't let one or two people poop on our conversion.

Side note: For the record, I did text my parents. There are some people who deserve respect--a text instead of finding out on Facebook.

I know--I'm pathetic.

Side side note: my mother is quite hilarious, as evidenced by her text.

Side side side note: No 52 year old should ever publicly announce the ability of producing a child technically still exists. What can I say? I'm gifted in the egg production department.

Monday, June 2nd rolled around. It's the most important day of our lives that doesn't really exist. Nowhere on our new license does it say June 2, 2014. Nowhere on any legal documents does it say June 2, 2014. This day doesn't really exist as anything in our lives except that it is the most important day. We can't "prove" that we had this conversion on June 2nd, 2014. We can only "prove" we were married on June 21, 2011. We weren't married on June 21, 2011 but now we are. How weird is that? How do I 'prove" to insurance companies that this qualifying event happened on June 2, 2014? I can't. Not really. I'm not sure even the county clerk can prove it. I was there, the wife was there, the clerk minion was there. My four hours of vacation time are documented but how do they know I was getting converted on June 2, 2014? For all they know, I was cleaning gutters with the wife.

I guess I'll have to show the insurance companies my Facebook page. After all, everything is official once it has been confirmed on Facebook.
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