Ask me about my lobotomy.

Username:	Password:
Forgot your password?	Remember Me

Quick things:
--Taking yet another day (mostly) off from work. Not because I'm tired from vacation, but mostly because I've only got one appointment this morning and I don't feel like waiting around for other people to call in.....so we're going to go see Harry Potter, and then wander over to the bar where they're attempting a DC version of that "Showtunes" thing they do in Chicago. We'll see.

--I've been back to my weird dreams. Last night we had a little Korean woman as a neighbor and she was in some kind of trouble with some sort of Korean mobster who was insisting that she marry him. So she somehow convinced me that she and I could have a fake marriage....and somehow marrying me would throw him off. Yes, because I'm that threatening. So I spent a week learning all kinds of bizarre marriage rituals, met her family, learned that they hated me, fumbled my way through the wedding....and woke up to go pee.

Off to my one rubbin'!

Back to reality!

We're back in DC, in the car on the way home. The weather? It's stunning. What's the deal with that?

Usually summer here is stunning in the other way, if you know what I mean.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

FAAAABULOUS!

cajuncountry's ready for a day on the town!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Dude, I'm 37.

Got carded today. Annoying.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Yay, fire.

Another bonfire last night. It was small, just four of us, but that's how I like it. There was a large group of people way down the beach doing some kind of kooky pagan thing, but other than that it was just a quiet, mid-week vacation-from-vacation.

cajuncountry has better pictures, so I'll just limit myself to this one:

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Dear Billy Ocean,

Please stop singing "Caribbean Queen" in my head.

Thx,

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Mmmmmm.

Karl is having poo for breakfast.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Okay, it's official.

The weather is completely, entirely, ridiculously perfect.

It's 8:18, and it's clear, dry, breezy, sunny and 65.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Triumph of the will

cajuncountry struggling up the driveway.

It's a touch steep.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

I may look like a dork,

But we're in Boston. We're waiting for Brian's plane to land, and then we're off to Long Wharf.

It's amusing to me how often I see a guy with facial hair and think, "Hmmm. Wonder if he's heading to P-town too...." then I see them meeting up with their friends and I know they're going to P-town.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Someone needs to tell her...
....that there's a difference between marketing yourself and BEING A WHORE.

So, some of you may remember Lip Balm Lady. I call her that because she has a small business making ludicrously overpriced lip balms and lotions that are supposedly all organic and wholesome. The problem? She calls them "Combat-Ready Balms" and packages them with military-looking labels. She is loudly thrilled about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, gripes loudly about Obama being elected, randomly takes people from the lobby when they have appointments with other practitioners and, when one of the reception people accidentally left herself logged in on facebook, spammed everyone on her friends list about her stuff and updated her status with "C******* B****** is enjoying softening her rough, chapped hands with S*** D******'s Combat Ready Balm!"

And then today I got this email on the Takoma Park Place's email list:

"Hi Everyone,

A couple of people have asked me to do this and I think its a fun idea...

$50 cash prize to whoever sells the most Combat-Ready products (Combat-Ready Balm, Lip Balm and Soap)between July 11 - July 22. This will be tracked through the computer and on the 23rd we will look at the results, announce the winner and give the prize!!

Good luck!

Questions? Call me at 202 XXX XXXX or email me at I'manevilmiddleagedhowhotriestotalklikeavalleygirl@aol.com

BIG HUGS + LOVE
Lip Balm Lady"

I guarantee you NO ONE asked her to do this. And, by the way, I find war profiteering, even when it's done on such a pissant scale, to be revolting. What a tool.

Too damn much hair

It's getting mowed off today, thank Jebus. I know there are lots of people who would kill for my problem, but seriously. It's like wearing a sweat-soaked ski hat all the time. And it's not going to be the nice, polite short haircut that I've been getting lately in Bethesda. I'm going up by Ft. Meade where they have the little tiny Korean ladies who grind the clippers into your head.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Dear Guardian/whatever newspaper from the UK,
Stop using beefcake pictures of Ernest Hemingway in your article about how he wanted to be a spy for the KGB

Because that picture is rather.....nice.

Lurve,

Me

Oof.
--One massage down, three to go. House call this evening, but not too far away, which is nice.

--Finally have a massage scheduled for MYSELF on Friday. I'm going to give the student clinic at my massage school a try, because I was finally able to make an appointment. I hope it doesn't suck, but for $12.50, am I really going to be able to complain?

--WANT A HAIRCUT. I swear. I have come so close to just shaving my head about 20 times this past week. But the haircut (if the hair survives till then) is Friday after the rubbin'.

--Three days to P-town. Three.

--Claude was SO good with my first appointment today. Didn't cause trouble at all...or much, anyway.

And another thing:
So, I saw some reference to the original Terminator, and I remembered something that bothered me when I saw it. If I remember right, when they time traveled they arrived naked (and hungry) because nothing non-living would go through the time machine. I think at the time we'd just gone over the fact that the outer layers of our skin and our hair are dead, and I remember thinking, "....well, wouldn't they be naked, hungry, bald and raw?, too?"

But that would have made it a much less appealing movie.

And probably shorter.

Things:
--So, I mentioned this on Facebook (not that I actually use Facebook--I'm much too wordy, and I'd rather do my wordiness here), but I've got a massage table in Provincetown, and I'll be doing a couple of rubbins a day at 9:30 and 11. Monday is full, and the 9:30 slot is taken on Tuesday and Thursday, but the rest are open! I may add a few more, but I don't want to do too much--I wanna have some Bear Week too!

--I finally got around to recording "Whatever, Martha!" Er, the idea of the show sounds much, much better than the reality. Martha's daughter is exactly what you would expect to have been squeezed out of Martha. What an unpleasant person.

--While doing things around the house, I had Lost Boys on the TV. Holy crap, what an awful movie. Do vampires really stick their tongues out and shake their heads at people to scare them? I'd like to see that without the DRAMATIC, EXTREME ZOOM. I'm thinkin' it wouldn't be that terrifying.

--Had a really amusing trip to the park with Claude this morning. There's this guy in our neighborhood named Pete. Pete is about 11 feet tall and has two golden retrievers, Jake, who's about ten, and Buttercup, who is....maybe a year old. We had about 20 minutes of off-leash time where Claude and Buttercup pranced in circles around each other and jumped a lot. Then they laid down for a little nap. Jake wants nothing to do with other dogs--not aggressive at all, just indifferent. He'd rather be petted by people.

--And now I'm going to go iron some shirts before work. Pray for me.

So. Somewhat dad-related stuff.
I haven't written about my dad in a while. One of the nice (relatively speaking) things about death is that people often stop doing things wrong afterwards.

This requires, I think, some backstory for those who are new, or a reminder for those who aren't up on the trivia of my life. My dad, who I often (in moments of good humor) describe as "Archie Bunker without the redeeming qualities" died a little over three years ago. (The various contemplations upon his expiration begin here, although the entire saga of metastatic lung cancer begins about 16 months earlier). I found him to be rather unpleasant and we did not get along, to say the least. For a while there were endless comparisons about how incredibly similar we were, although it's always difficult to determine whether that's coming from a "you're just like him, so shut up" place, or if it's actually sincere. Since his death there's been a lot of talk in my immediate family, mostly theorizing about him because we actually knew relatively little, mostly due to the fact that everything on Dad's side of the family was always so shrouded in secrecy. The little we know was always told in whispers, and was only ever told after a few drinks, and, when my family is concerned "a few" means something closer to 20. And "drink" means straight gin or scotch, so the secrets we learned were rarely all that coherent.

Definitions are always relative to the situation, aren't they?

So, after an evening at happy hour, I'm as close to my dad's side of the family's state of mind as I get, although my being "somewhat tipsy" would qualify to them as being "hydrated". But, I've had just enough to drink to be chatty, and a conversation tonight with a friend of ours has reminded me of something I'd meant to write about during my week in Provincetown with Mom, Alex, Ben and Kate, but hadn't managed to get around to.

Really, both sides of the family have more than their fair share of secrets. The only difference between the two sides is the relative significance of the secrets.....although maybe "significance" isn't the right word. The ones on my mom's side of the family (the ones that immediately pop to mind are, "is grandma Yeamans the actual daughter of the father on her birth certificate, or was she the daughter of someone else? If her mother and 'father' lived in Athens, Ohio, why was she born in Wheeling, West Virginia? And why did her "biological" father feel the need to "adopt" her when she was three? Was her last name at birth Armentrout (which I'm fairly sure would make me a cousin of someone we know) or Hammerstrong?" On Dad's side, it was more along the lines of "who made those scars? You know, the ones that could only have come from a stabbing. Those scars. And who was that (obviously) catholic priest in the pictures snuggling on the couch with the pregnant woman on Christmas Eve?" Maybe it's too easy to say that Mom's family's secrets were easier, but they were definitely less ultimately damning and violent. I often wonder what Grandma Yeamans (Mom's mom--I know, I know. My maternal grandparents' last name rhymed with my paternal grandparents' name. Wacky.) really felt about her upbringing. She was definitely of the "everything was perfect, now stop asking questions" frame of mind.

In my generation of our family, people seem to have gone one of two ways. Either they have continued with the previous generations' Nothing To See Here attitude (which has invariably led to major drug and alcohol problems, multiple divorces, multiple children from multiple partners, jail time, repeated suicide attempts, drug overdoses, or all six), or they have gone the way of Tad and I, and adopted a Nothing Is Sacred, And What Does 'Sacred' Mean, Anyway policy.

So, what I've been working my way around to is this:

In Provincetown, one evening after dinner, Ben and Kate (who, for the record, are 20 and 18 respectively, the children of my older brother Tad, who is also gay and who is the personification (in my opinion) of the collected humor of the Monty Python troupe) had a question:

So. What was the deal with grandpa, anyway?

And Mom and I told them what we knew, from our respective points of view. Mom was pre-lubed by a glass of chardonnay, and mood-wise I was nothing if not philosophical.

Now, one thing that rarely happens here in my blogthang is writing about Dad when I'm not in the middle of some "you-were-a-horrible-father" kind of snit, so this is bound to be a bit different than what I usually write.

Or....maybe not. Who knows how it will change from my original intentions? I'm not in much of a proof-reading mood.

The results were....interesting. Mom and I boiled things down to (I think) two basic rules in his life:

1) You will not tell me what to do.
2) Appearances are more important than reality.

Every single thing he did came down to one of these two things. It started as Mom and I telling them stories, but as we went along, it became more and more a conversation between Mom and I, comparing notes like we did in the evenings before Dad's funeral, but now from a much less stressed-out place than we were then. It was very interesting, though, that the vast majority of my experiences were in service of Rule #2, while Mom's were all about Rule #1, although each of us had occasional overlaps that proved the other right.

It was, to say the least, an interesting evening. And Ben and Kate got a slightly different view of the history than they usually get from their dad. One thing that didn't come up, though, was our (more or less confirmed through various tidbits of stories) theories about Dad's homosexual leanings. I'm sure we'll talk about that at some point, though.

One interesting thing is that I really haven't had any kind of long, drawn-out conversation with Tad about Dad. From the little bits we have had, he's got a bit of a different take on the whole thing, having borne much more of the brunt of Dad's homophobia. That, in particular, is really interesting to me, because I never heard a single word from Dad on the subject, although Mom says she thinks I managed to intimidate him, so he never bothered me with lectures on his version of morality....at least beyond his cardinal rule: Fuck Everyone Before They Fuck You, a rule that he used religiously with everyone, and with his family most of all.

Anyway, I guess my point here (although this may or may not be the point I started out with) is that it's really interesting to me how our family has changed since he died. There aren't secrets any more; in fact, there's much more of an attitude of unconditional....I guess usually the words people expect here are "unconditional love", but given my family's history, "unconditional acceptance" is a much better way of putting it.

And, ultimately, much more meaningful.

Oooo.
Bill Krystol says Palin's resignation could be a "shrewd gamble".

Since he's saying so, it's CLEARLY NOT.

Oh, Sarah.
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Please tell me that the reason you're resigning is because it's about to come out that Levi Johnston is also the father of your baby, because that would be all kinds of awesome.