The Blog I'm Not Writing

 

Happy Birthday, JWW.

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The SCOTUS decision is responsible for this blast from the past: back in late 1992, a man from the OCA, a conservative Christian PAC in Oregon, was canvassing my neighborhood. He seemed pleased to see an obviously pregnant, married (I actually caught him glancing at my ring finger!) woman answer the door, and tried to get me to sign a petition supporting the OCA’s efforts to prohibit “special rights” for homosexuals. His pitch included the provocative warning that time was of the essence – before you know it, “the gays” will bring about the ruination of the “normal” family unit, and even demand the right to marry!

 I smiled sweetly (it took some effort, let me tell ya), patted my mother-to-be bump, and replied, “Not only do I support gay marriage, I think *every* marriage should be a gay marriage!”

 Dude left skidmarks departing my porch.

 I’m still trying to absorb the momentousness (is that even a word?) of this decision. Congratulations to everyone who has worked so hard to have their family rights recognized. It doesn’t happen often enough, but humane human values seem to have prevailed.

That was my FB post last week, after I heard about the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage. Anecdote expansion: years later I was having a conversation with the “product” of the afore-mentioned pregnancy – my son K – about current events, and the two of us simultaneously wondered aloud if that issue – the rights for gays to marry – would be the defining civil rights issue of his generation.

 

 

Amidst all the justifiable jubilation, I’ve been thinking about other landmark SCOTUS decisions and legislative acts. Loving v. Virginia allowed, some thirty-plus years after its decision, for my brother to enter into his “interracial” [1] marriage with little fuss…although I know that is still not always the case for other such marital unions.  Brown v. The Board of Education , the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Roe V. Wade separately and collectively didn’t eradicate the attitudes and racism and gender discrimination that led to the Charleston massacre and murderous misogyny and internet harassment of women…. And there is always a backlash to progress.  I hear that in at least one state, [2] county clerks have refused to grant marriage licenses in defiance of the SCOTUS decision….

But, I’m not gonna go there right now. It’s nice to breathe deeply and whoop loudly, and celebrate for a moment, sans consideration of whatever is to come.

 

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Department of Stream of Consciousness
Slice of Life Division

So I ran over to the nearest grocery store to grab a couple of things I was missing for dinner prep, and a wine rep was doing a wine tasting in the store, a rep whom I thought looked kinda sorta familiar and she later recognized me, after she asked to see my ID and I pointed my finger toward the lines framing my eyes which she pretended not to see (the lines; she saw my finger) and she said, No really, we do need to card anyone who looks 26 or under and I laughed heartily and told her my age and she spewed the reflex response to age-honesty, which I know is meant to be polite or even flattering but which nevertheless makes me cringe – she gushed No way! and stammered that I look essentially thirty years younger, which I know I don’t and I wish it didn’t have to be meant as a compliment in our ageist society but wine sample woman goes on and on about it and I flashed a knowing look to the young man standing behind me who was patiently waiting to sample some wine and who shook his head as if to say Yeah, sure lady, you look whatever your age is, now, how do we get her to shut up? and then I really took a good look at him in all his youth and thick blond hair and suspenders and shorts but no shirt and I knew we’re in the middle of an unseasonable heat wave and it’s 99 in the shade but I was thinking, geeze dude you’re strutting around with your hairy blonde naked nipple chest and what if I tried to pull that off? and wine woman said, I remember you! to me and asked if I was the woman who during the last tasting gave her the tip about briefly chilling a red wine to bring out its complexity and I ‘fessed up and she said god bless you in that way people say it when you’re not sure if they actually mean to invoke their deity’s consecration upon you or it’s like they are using it as a stand in for thanks or good morning or gesundheit or have a nice day or holy fuck would you look at the pecs on that buff and shirtless young man, but then later she said it again and somehow I managed to stifle myself from responding, Yeah well I’m an atheist so that’s not gonna happen.

Oh, and the wine was very good. Especially the red blend.

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Reflections on all things messy, as per recent events

This was going to be my musings about how  Bruce Jenner, born biologically/genetically/XY chromosomally male, can become Caitlyn Jenner because he “feels” female, vis-à-vis Rachel Dolezal, the leader of the Spokane NAACP who was outed by her parents as white woman, even though Dolezal claims to feel or “identify” as black.

Oh, never mind.

 

 

Instead, wouldn’t you rather look at a picture of a delicious crab, avocado and roasted sweet corn salad?

We’ve been enjoying the fruits of MH’s going crabbing in Manzanita last Sunday – in the form of having crab several nights in a row, including this salad, which tasted even better than it looked…

 

 

…and which seemed to have removed all thoughts of current events commentary from my mind…except for this vestige of the tabloid-worthy identity stories. I woke up yesterday with an interesting image in my mind: a somewhat nervous, male Dungeness crab  [3] being removed from a crab pot, pleading his case to the crabbers:

Yeah, I know I look male, but I’m transitioning to female.

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Department of Just Because

I came across an article about a casting call in Arkansas for the sequel to a movie that was titled  God’s Not Dead. [4] The sequel will be titled…hold on to your purity rings, boys and girls…God’s Not Dead 2.

I can’t help but fantasize about the sequel’s preview voiceover:

 He’s back, He’s still not dead, and HE’S PISSED !!!!

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Department of WTF, Oregon?

Jul 2 99°F; Jul 3 97°; Jul 4 96°; Jul 5 101°; Jul 6 97°

This is not the forecast of the Oregon-west-of-the-Cascades-Range I’ve known and loved for the past 24+ years. I’m thinking my antiperspirant needs a more realistic name, or at least an update, from

to

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May you always look (but never act) your age and be at ease about it,
May your transitions be crab-free and your marriages be gay,
…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

[1] I loathe that term, and wish I could ride a time warp back to muzzle the misguided anthropologists who coined the classifications of “races.” Ain’t no such things. My brother didn’t marry out of his “race;” he married a member of the human race.

[2] Tex-ass. You’d guessed that, didn’t you?

[3] Oregon crabbing regulations stipulate that only males of a certain shell width may be kept.

[4] Nope, I’d never heard of it either.