Ellen the Blue-Eyed Cowgirl Knew She Was Gay

So how this whole shit started was that Martha from my office decided I needed to go out for the Fourth of July, that my drinking alcohol all alone had become a problem and that the solution to this problem was drinking alcohol around other people.

This seemed counter-intuitive to me as, in my experience, drinking alcohol all alone was the solution to my problems and not a problem in and of itself. But Martha from my office was very insistent so right away, I suspected she had ulterior motives.

The bar on the northwest side of town was built to look like some kind of a big boat and the band played Jimmy Buffett cover songs.

Badly.

I suppose there may be no other way of playing them.  

Children & Priests & Lesbians... Oh My!

The re-Catholicization of Dana continues.

I don’t know how much I’ve already told you about this, but I am telling you now. There is a Bible on our nightstand. There is a Crucifix in the den. Not a Cross, mind you. No, a Crucifix, which is like the Cross that you would expect Christians to place in prominent locations in their homes, in their courts, and in their classrooms, except that a Crucifix comes with a little something extra.

A Crucifix comes with a tiny dying man-god nailed to it.

He might already be dead. It is sort of difficult to tell.

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples

The Girl with the Pierced Nipples was back in the store yesterday.

It was that slowest part of mid-afternoon and I was on my laptop, so when she walked up to the counter I started to raise my head, but I only got as high as her chest before saying, “Hi! The usual QuickPick and a pack of Marlboro Menthol 100’s?”

And from somewhere a voice said, “Exactly!”  as those familiar barbell piercings rubbed against her thin white cotton shirt with her every inhalation and with her every word. So I pulled the QuickPick, grabbed her pack of cigarettes, and went back to watching the show with the piercings… and the bouncing… and, of course, with the thin white cotton shirt…

What I Did for Love

My best behavior.

She said my best behavior. Not somebody else’s best behavior. She did not say that. But my best behavior. Mine.

And I believe we can agree, you and I can, that that is a subjective standard. Just like how my favorite song is not your favorite song. Were you to hear it, you probably would not like my favorite song very much.

My best church clothes probably would not fit you, and even if they did fit you, you probably would not wish to wear them. They are not your best church clothes. They are not objectively the best church clothes possible. Not Plato’s Ideal Church-clothes-ness. Nuh-uh.

No, when Dana – who is my wife – came in to talk to me the other day, she was specific in what she said. I even wrote it down, word for word, in the little pocket note pad I keep with me at all times. When Dana came in to talk to me the other day, this is what she said. She said, “Katy, we just hired a new associate. Partner track. And she has invited everybody in our department to her house for dinner tomorrow night.”