Tag Archives: Favorite People

Gay superheroes

This is what happens when you dare to be gay in comic books.

PS I didn’t know Batwoman was a lesbian. Corey – want to weigh in on this?

Tad, you wanna tumble?

Thanks for everything Susannah, mi comadre!

You would not look nearly so lumpy in that green sequined leotard.

Ode to my baby sister Margaret

It seems like only yesterday

you taught your stuffed animals to read.

Now they are in college.

Your hair is so long

like a mermaid’s.

I borrowed your running shorts.

I’ll wash them before I give them back.

I’m glad your bed is high

with a net around it

so the boys can’t get in.

Since when do you play the banjo?

Dark Horse and the Carousels

This is Duane’s song “Crazy.” He is my friend who plays guitar and sings back-up vocals in Dark Horse and the Carousels. I love the song, but I think we should all send the band some money to reshoot the video so it isn’t set in a bedroom under purple lighting and no one is smoking or showing off his chest hair on camera. I could also get behind a boy meets girl sort of back story. Perhaps less graffiti. Shorter haircuts. Some tube tops. I feel like Martin Scorcese here.

You guys sound great though.

Duane, don’t kill me for posting this.

Obviously I’m staying in tonight

The Top Ten Rap Songs White People Love:

On House of Pain’s “Jump Around” –

If you’ve ever seen Black People comedy, you’ll be familiar with the notion that White People have no rhythm and can’t dance. This is true. That’s why they will embrace with both honky arms any song that makes it OK for them to not actually dance during it or that tells them exactly what to do and when to do it.

If you go to a club and this fucking song comes on all the White People will literally jump around. I fucking promise you.

I love the 100+ comments after this piece. One guy writes “How lame am I? I have most of these tracks in a playlist I call ‘Novelty Hip Hop.’ ”

Brian also interviews Beyonce, who says “I is cute, floofy, and wearin’ a blue sweater.”

Then Brian tells an illustrated story of his ethnic heritage.  “People are always telling me to tone it down, saying that I shouldn’t be so edgy and outrageous. Well I say fuck that!”

My lunch hour with the BBC

Because there was some confusion at work this morning about who still needed a nap and who was going to be fully clothed during work hours, I was delighted to have lunch with my family. My little brother and his girlfriend are in town from Wyoming, so I brought them some bacon sandwiches. At my parents’ house, I found my grandmother stretched out in bed with the wool covers pulled up to her chin. She had a tear streaming down her cheek as she watched TV.

“What’s the matter?” I said, lying down beside her.

“The elephants,” she said. “They can’t find the water. It’s just agony.” She was watching the first episode of the Planet Earth documentary entitled Pole to Pole, wherein a herd of elephants treks hundreds of miles across the desert through dust storms and enemy territories in order to reach water. By the way, lately my grandmother describes everything as either bliss or agony. Bliss occurs when she gets to lie down in bed again, drink Coca-Cola, and watch soaps after a doctor’s appointment.

“It’s okay, Big Wis,” I said, “They’ll make it to the water eventually.” Her eyes stayed glued to the screen and she pulled the covers up to her nose so I could barely hear her.

“I can’t stand it,” she said. “I worry so about the animals.”

Grandmother update

Today Big Wis received a letter from her cat Rascal in Georgia. She has been feeding this stray cat for years on her back porch, and at night it sleeps on her bed. She has been worried that the cat would abandon her during her convalescence in Virginia, because a week-long trip has now become a month-long medical ordeal. Her faithful employee David, who has changed her lightbulbs and watered her flowers and filled her car with gas for decades, has been putting cat food outside her condo twice a day. Like many Southern white folks of her generation, Big Wis has a close, albeit complicated relationship with her black “help,” but David is like family to her. I always assumed that he liked my grandmother, but kept a certain distance because of the de facto social segregation that still exists in the South between black and white, not to mention employee and employer. They were so different, she with her genteel Sweet Briar education and he who learned to read and write only much later in life. And then today she got this letter in the mail, addressed to Wisteria, which made her cry:

Mama,

Thangs have gone to hell hear since you hav gone. David feeds me the same ole cat food. I miss u at nite. I stay wif Ellie & Barney [the condo neighbors] but it was not like u being here. Come home soon.

Rascal

Wedding pictures

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-Posing by the gazebo

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-The second best date at the wedding, after the bride

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-Gleefully instigating a dance fight

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-What’s a wedding without a secret tree fort?

Invalid update

My Georgia grandmother is still here in the hospital down the street. I genuinely love visiting her and trying to make her hospital stay tolerable, but at the same time I think I’m getting a bit of a Florence Nightingale syndrome. I find myself telling people, “I’m sorry I can’t come to your party. I was up early bringing quiche Lorraine and piping hot coffee to my grandmother who is in the hospital. You understand why I’m exhausted.” As we were waiting for the elevator at Scott Stadium this afternoon, I said to everyone within earshot, “I’ve been riding the elevator a lot lately, going up to the fifth floor and back, visiting my sick grandmother in the hospital.” I am discovering there is a certain selfish allure to being a caretaker. How can I top the martyrdom tomorrow? Can I smuggle a kitten into the hospital to replace my grandmother’s beloved stray cats that she feeds in Georgia and misses terribly? Can I organize a bridge team comprised of all my most entertaining friends and throw her a card party in her room? Can I befriend Venus Williams, who my grandmother feels a certain kinship with because they both have long legs? There’s gotta be something more. This whole ordeal makes me wish I was a doctor or a certified nurse. Then at least I could do more than just bring her fattening foods and make sure her blanket is tucked securely under her shoulders. Then at least I could maybe fix her for real instead of doing all this other showy, superficial stuff. We’ve been joking a lot about the elderly lady who was recently murdered by her daughter at an assisted living place in town. I believe her daughter smothered her with a pillow. For some reason this strikes us all as extremely funny right now. But I think my grandma is trying to stay jolly and entertaining for us just in case. “This is the best quiche I’ve ever eaten,” she says. “I appreciate everything you’re doing. Please don’t kill me.” “Oh grandma,” I say. “I could never do that. Taking care of you makes me feel so good about myself. And plus, you have cable TV and wireless internet in your hospital room, and I usually get to finish your chocolate pudding.”

Things I Contemplated Buying Today for Friend Going to Burning Man

1. A childrens’ lunchbox. Nixed because it was too “90s rave culture.”

2. A bottle opener shaped like a flamingo. Beak seemed sharp – dangerous.

3. An envelope for business cards. Is she going to be handing out business cards at Burning Man? Probably not. You don’t want those people knowing where you work.

4. Condoms. She’s already stocked up.

5. Drugs. All I have is Tylenol PM and a couple Vicodin left over from dental surgery. That’s not going to cut it in the desert.

6. Some anti-Bush, pro-liberal buttons. Isn’t that just assumed?

7. Cute purse. Oh wait – that was for me.

8. A decorative thermos. Wasn’t nearly big enough to hold the two gallons of water you have to drink every hour you’re there.

9. Chocolate. A) It would melt. B) People would assume it was laced with something and then they’d be disappointed and perhaps take it out on my friend.

10. An escape pod. jjjjjk.

I settled on something very ordinary (albeit Mexican), and something she can easily re-gift to new friends, and something that can double as a travel case for LSD. I’m a good shopper.

PS Thank you Cha Cha’s and Paper Rock Scissors.