For anyone who wanted to know, this was it. Full and edited only insofar as to
remove names from public view. This is, according to my once-brother, rife with
nightmarish imagery and a personal stance that is no longer anything he can bring
himself to discount.
Yeah. Well. Guess no one ever told him--despite years of association--that
I was a mouthy bitch.
26 Aprille 2004
2:11 am
Dear Mark,
The party was great fun, more fun than I expected. We actually had somewhat of
a budget, so I was given the opportunity to shop for food and party favors and
plasticware and such. We got a simple white 'CONGRATULATIONS' banner,
with wedding bells, and I picked out flower-printed clear glasses, purple
spoons, green forks, and purple and green plates. (Figured purple and green
were our original wedding colors, so what the hell.) I added a selection of
crazy plastic straws--the ones with all the loops and twists in bright yellow,
pink, green and blue—-a set of Tiki-god coasters, a set of pink flamingo drink
stirrers, and some really bright napkins with a Hawai'ian design in orange,
blue and green.
Hey. Right now in our seventies basement? I mean, seriously. We're working
on decorating in a Tiki/Polynesian motif. We actually have a velvet painting
over the Franklin stove, of three green-glowing ships at sea, inherited from my
mom. We've got just about every type of alcohol or wine anyone might want in
the built-in bar, and on the top shelf is our collection of action figures.
Not the expected ones of superheroes, precisely, but the ones like Princess
Leia in the bikini, and Trinity jumping off the wall, and the robot wench from
Metropolis, and Dana Scully from the X-Files. (On the TV are the defaults.
Storm on her light-up base from the movie, she's on the left. Eric Draven with
the crow that brought him back on his shoulder is perched, strangely enough, on
a cow bone a friend brought back from some devastatingly small town in Idaho.
We're planning on sanding it down and painting it black, and then gluing Eric
atop it. And, of course, Dr. Ari from the remake of Planet of the Apes is
waving her Ape Confederacy flag. The remake sucked, but was still entertaining
enough to watch if there's nothing else to do. And the figure was $4.00. On
sale. How can you pass up a simian version of Helen Bonham Carter for four
bucks?
(It's like the Daredevil figure. I have to own it--not because the movie was
that fantastic, but because it's a pretty perfect cast of Ben Affleck's face.
So I can stand the figure next to various examples of weirdness in the basement
and he can just look baffled by it all.)
So, yeah, the basement. I felt I had to encourage its natural tendency towards
the kitsch zone by getting floral, island-y kind of party décor.
It was a really interesting party—half vegetarian, half omnivore. So we got a
ton of almond and soy cheese, and brought in veggie burgers, and prepared a
spelt and edamame salad--if you want the recipe (can you get edamame in the
South? It's just recently become available here) that was split into two
portions--the portion with feta cheese, for the non-vegans, and the portion
without cheese, for the vegans. It's so good it worked both ways, and everyone
had second helpings. Then we threw salmon on the grill for the non-vegetarians,
had macaroni and potato salad and deviled eggs.
The finishing touch, and the single most expensive thing I bought, was a
vegan-edible chocolate layer cake made with spelt flour. Everyone loved it.
Which is good, because the damn thing cost $45 to acquire! But it was beyond
yummy. Smaller version clocks in around $29, and we may pick up one now and
again because it's just so very good.
([DF], one of our vegan friends, was nearly moved to tears by this--usually,
she told us, she goes to a gathering and she's in the headspace of, "Oh, you
have lettuce? Great, I'll eat that." Instead, she comes to our party and we
feed her spelt and edamame salad and veggie burgers and give her soy cheese for
them and green salad on top of that and a big slice of chocolate cake with Soy
Delicious chocolate ice cream on the side. She was stuffed. And nearly crying
because it was the first time in a long time she didn't have to go hungry at a
party.
(No one should go hungry at a party, damn it. That's part of the point.)
Friends of ours from Spokane drove out--our married friend [JV], who actually
took a vacation by himself to come out and say hi, most unusual for him, and
our friends [SM] and [DF], and their growing little boy [ZF]. Who was mightily
alone for the weekend, sadly, but he's an only child at home, so he's used to
it. [JV]'s a vegetarian, and [SM] and [DF] are vegans. Family came-—my [aunt],
who moved the next week back to the Spokane area, and [my cousin] and [his wife],
sans [his wife's daughter [Dn]], who completed her 'I-hate-you-you-suck' speech by
getting off the plane back from Santa Cruz (to see her dad, natch) when it
stopped in Seattle. No one's seen [Dn] since, and she's not answering her
email. So [his wife] was pretty much a wreck, but she hid it well. And we
invited potential new friends [Jn] and [Rn], who were also vegetarian.
We are so good at hiding what we're feeling when we're feeling it. It's a
family thing, but [his wife]'s picked up on it pretty damn well for marrying
into the dysfunction.
Having just returned from N'Awlins, [SM] and [DF] got us a little coffin with
a bright red devil inside, and a 'voodoo soap kit' from the Marie Laveau
Museum. Haven't dared to use the soap yet--not because of 'voodoo'
connotations, but because it's so strongly pine-scented the entire bathroom
smells like a forest now, and it's not out of the box yet. They also brought
us a gold strand of beads--caught--and a strand of black beads with pirate
flags on them--bought, but they're still fun. We have this five-foot high
plastic skeleton that's braced against the bar, and he's now wearing the
throws.
At some point when they go down, I just may have them coordinate with you. So
they can bring back pics or something. I dunno. They just seem to go down
there a lot more often than I do, and since I've never gone, that doesn't say
a lot. Let me say this--they go down about once a year, because [DF]'s father
lives there. Lived there most of his life, in fact.
[My cousin's wife]'s other daughter, [Cn], came, and she brought candles, which
were very interesting. I say this because she decided to pick out one that
might work well for our sense of décor. (This next will tell you what she
knows about our sense of décor.) It was an absolutely neutral ivory hurricane,
cast in wax, with an ivory insert about two inches high and about two inches
around, that you light and set inside so the entire wax creation glows with
light. And then she let her little boy pick out the candle he wanted to
give us. And he insisted--and she told us this over and over, like we were
supposed to be shocked or something--on getting us a really finely crafted
Buddha head, the Tibetan style, with the sleepy eyes, the long stretched
earlobes, and the flame on the head. That one's in black. It is quite
possibly the only candle that will never fulfill its purpose to burn. It's
beautiful.
That little four-year-old has great taste. His mom should encourage him.
[My cousin's wife], on the other hand, was really nervous about her gift to
us. Don't know why she would be. She got us a full-size lawn flamingo,
complete with four baby lawn flamingos. The capper? It came with twelve
outfits for each month and the holidays. So, the day after we got it--which
was Easter--I went out and put the little Easter cap on it, with the pink and
white bunny ears, and this really strange blue and yellow vest-like thing
around the body.
Three days later, I thought, okay, Easter's over, what's good? And I realized
it was raining. So he's now in his little yellow rain hat and his little
yellow rainslicker. He's been my happy thought most days, out there on the
front lawn.
My gods, he even has a turkey costume. Can you believe it? November rolls
around, I think I'm going to get complaints from the neighbors. A flamurky.
I'm going to be laughing my ass off on a daily basis.
We also had an Easter barbecue--essentially, this involves a lighter, several
bamboo skewers, and a package of Easter peeps and Easter bunnies. You know,
the candy ones. You soak them in whatever accelerant you have on hand--we used
vodka at first, then switched to art fixative spray, and finished with rubbing
alcohol, which was the most dramatic--and light them up and let them burn away.
It's cool and creepy and manic fun and really disturbing, and I think all of our
best parties should now incorporate those four elements.
Which, really, aren't that far removed from the four sacred elements of
Discordianism. Which are, if you don't know, sweet, pungent, orange and
boom.
The marriage thing. Heh. It is pretty strange, us having proceeded from the
frying pan into the fire once more, as is our wont. We got married in the
first full week marriage licenses were being given out in Multnomah County,
which is Portland. In Clackamas County, where we live, the council decided not
to give out same-sex licenses, but formally stated they would honor any marriage
made elsewhere, whether it was same-sex or not. Which I thought was even better
than giving 'em out. Benton County beat us all, though--they decided that if they
couldn't give out licenses for anyone who wanted them, they wouldn't give out any
licenses at all, which confused the Defense of Marriage folks out here.
Anyway, various forces were pulling against the more than 3,000 marriages
performed in Multnomah County being officially ratified as marriages, and talk
of lawsuits were being bandied about. Finally, a sitting state judge reviewed
the ACLU case before putting it to trial and arguments, and turned in a summary
judgement--that Multnomah County must immediately stop issuing licenses; that
Multnomah County needs to officially ratify all marriages performed to date,
previous to the cut-off date; and that the Oregon congress must deal with this
issue in their next session, within the first 90 days--or admit that Multnomah
County was correct in issuing the initial licenses, in which case the county is
bound to begin issuing them again.
Interesting judgement.
Me, I really don't so much care what they call it, as long as they give us the
same rights and protections, but the problem seems to be larger than terminology.
There are 'civil unions' already on the books, and they do an okay job of
protecting children and assets in case of accident or death. But the
institution officially termed 'marriage' nationwide grants more than 1,300
benefits, rights and responsibilities--which the institution of 'civil union',
as currently written, profoundly does not. Rights of survivorship, adoption,
medical care, insurance, tax structuring, funeral benefits, it goes on and on.
I read through it--it's pretty wild, all things considered. So I'm now one of
the ones thinking that, even though I don't care what it's called, 'marriage'
should be a concept given to all people who wish it.
But then, I wish there could be triad marriages, official polygamy, and legal
drugs and prostitution, so what do I know? I'm obviously not in step with our
oh-so-conservative world.
I still don't understand the debate over gays in the military. The world was
founded and wars worldwide were won by shieldmates fighting side by side.
Hell, Sparta and Athens were famous for this; Alexander had more than one unit
entirely populated by gay men bound by love. And they were vicious, man. So
the straights don't get it? Apparently, they’re still freaking over women in
the military. Initial studies have shown that men will walk by a fallen male
comrade, most of the time, and shoot the man that brought him down; whereas if
men walk past a fallen female soldier, most of the time they'll stop and be
horrified--and get shot in the process by the enemy. This is not a good thing,
to my way of thinking, but I'm just thinking, hey, all-female units. And then
we can restart the 'famous for viciousness' thing--because I still believe, men
are big and can beat things down, but women will friggin' take you out if they
want to.
What you speak of happening in Boulder and Durango--it's long past obvious in
Seattle, and it's starting to become obvious in the Portland area. On the
other hand, Portland is preserving a long-standing tradition that's staving off
the effects of such rampant growth in many areas. Rents are getting high, but
there are all these little inclusive neighborhoods claiming their independent
identities inside the larger city structure. Nob Hill, St. Johns' Landing,
Raleigh Heights, West Hills, Sellwood, Burlingame--the list goes on and on.
And we're living on the edge of the expansion, anyway--we're living in a tiny
little community that used to be a railroad town. Gladstone is pretty much one
main street, a couple of longer arteries, and a lot of winding roads leading to
suburb divisions. Which works for us--other than the excessive religiosity of
the area (we live half a mile from the state's single largest Seventh Day
Adventist installation), it's a small, quiet little suburb town. Little
library, easy drive to all the other communities, well-kept lawns and flowers
and lots of amateur gardeners scattered about.
