The Idiot’s Guide to Lesbians in My Soup

Thank you. From all of us here. I mean, all of us here thank you. We oh-most-so-sincerely thank you, thank you, and also thank you!

I mean, the management, staff, and the board of directors of this here “Lesbians in My Soup” thing do.  And by that, I mean we’re the ones doing the thanking. Of you, the thanked. And buddy, just how thankin’ great does that make you feel, huh?

But now it’s over. Season One, I mean. Season One is caput, finito, finished. It’s dead and it’s done and it won’t be coming home again anytime soon. Don’t bother leaving a light on.

Season One’s done but Two still ain’t here…

So while we’re waiting… Something has come to our attention. Confusion. Yours, not ours. The confusion, I mean. Of you, the confused.

Top 4 Reasons I Am Against Gay Marriage

I am against gay marriage. I think it is an abomination.

I am against gay marriage. It should not be legal and it should not be accepted.

I am against gay marriage. Please don’t tell my wife.

It is June of 2011 and I am watching the t.v. And on the t.v. I am watching are lots and lots of New York queers and they are happy and they are smiling and they are dancing in the streets.

You might even say they are gay gays, if you go for that sort of thin wordplay.

This guy with a mic and a camera, he works for some t.v. station in N.Y.C., and he asks one of the queers why everybody looks so damn happy. Why everybody is smiling. Dancing in the streets.

And this queer – er, excuse me, this gay gay – he says, “We won! We can finally get married in the State of New York!”

He says, “Now, we are exactly like everybody else!”

Ha! That’s right. Exactly like everybody else, he says.

Have I mentioned I am against gay marriage?

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"Birth, school, work, death: Here we come!"

I have never really felt that “gay pride” thing I hear so much about. I am not proud of the people I sleep with. Some of them, I am downright embarrassed about. I avoid them on the street, refuse eye contact, and under no circumstances will I be throwing a parade to bring attention to my folly.

And the majority of any group you can name tend to be… idiots. It’s not their fault, really. It’s just the law of averages.

And if there were ever to be some magical line of demarcation whereby the idiots stand on that side… over there… and the non-idiots stand on this side… over here… it seems doubtful to me that this hypothetical dividing line would have anything to do with the genitalia of anybody’s sex partners.

I mean, why would it?

But hey, “we” won! We won, goddamn it!

We beat the system and can now be just exactly like everyone else.

The corrupt system did not want us to conform to it, but boy, did we show the system. We civilized ourselves. Domesticated ourselves. Trivialized ourselves.

Take that, system!

And now we get to go to PTA meetings and watch “Everybody Loves Raymond”! We get Capri pants and opposable thumbs. Matchbox 20 records and sports utility vehicles and this high blood pressure medication I’ve been hearing so much about. Who knows? Someday soon, we might even get to vote Republican. What a win that will be!

Sky’s the limit, buddy.

It only took a couple decades for Christians to change from a persecuted minority in the Roman Empire to the persecuting majority. And President Obama and Colin Powell, Nancy Pelosi and Condoleezza Rice, these days, they can smoke them cigars in the back room and order an execution or the bombing of a third world nation just as smoothly as any old white male ever could back in the day.

So maybe I should sit back and look forward to gays and lesbians pulling that ladder up after ourselves. To clamping down on the next group that tries to organize a civil rights movement. God knows, nothin’ in this world says “I am a part of the system” like finding your very own minority to persecute.

But wait. I am against gay marriage, and I promised you my top four reasons for why that is.

I promised you something up top, and I always carry through on my promises.

So I am against the legalization and widespread acceptance of gay marriage and here’s why:

Number 4:       The Family Research Council, the Catholic Church, and Rick Santorum all assure me that marriage is the cornerstone of our civilization’s whole system of morality and property and law, and I believe them.

Number 3:       Anything that starts to become acceptable to my grandmother in Michigan immediately gets boring. Witness the career arches of Johnny Depp and Robert DeNiro, Metallica and Bowie and Adrianna Oopsy.

Number 2:       I am against gay marriage because I am against joining the gang of thugs whose traditional raison d'être has been to beat the shit out of me.

And the Number 1 reason I oppose the legalization of gay marriage:          I am against gay marriage because when you see rats swimming away from a ship, you do not fight to get on board that ship.

And I just can’t say it any more plainly than that. 

Interview with a Bigamist

So it’s me and my wife and her husband and his husband (who is also my husband) and we’re sitting ‘round a table in some restaurant with some people from some newspaper from Austin.

Wait… I should probably back up.

So it’s me and my wife and her husband and his husband (who is also my husband) and we’re sitting ‘round a table in my living room with a reporter from some newspaper from Austin.

For two hundred days now, we’ve been living this Double Bigamy (All the Way). And for two hundred days now, no one has noticed. But here we are on day two hundred and one and someone has noticed. She’s standing in my living room, and she’s a real live journalist with real official press credentials you could check and one of those high tech audio recorders and everything you’d expect. The whole nine yards.

I’m told this is just the “pre-interview,” and I don’t even know what a pre-interview is. Pre-interviews are something in heaven and earth that are not dreamt of in my philosophy.

This real live journalist, she is excited. You can see it on her face, in the way she’s thinking out loud, her eyes darting around for new information. She is excited. By the time she sees the kids, I half expect her to shriek or to clap or to do a little dance or whatever it is journalists do when they realize they’ve just struck journalism gold.

“What a strange and wonderful family!” she says.

“This is really compelling,” she says. “Dana, you’re this gorgeous up-and-coming attorney at a major Houston law firm. And Anthony here, this handsome, incredibly well-spoken professor at a local college. And Aesop, a physician’s assistant and musician!”

“And these beautiful kids!” she says.

Although I cannot be certain, I believe I am physically in the room while she is saying this. In my, you know, bodily form. Visible to all with eyes to see.

It is clear I’m the fourth wheel on a tricycle here. And I’m seventh if you count the beautiful children. And I’m ninth if you count the reporter and the photographer. Heaven forbid anyone else shows up. I might be forced to sit outside to make room. I’m the fourth wheel, even though this was all my idea, and anyway, without me, it’s just plain old boring bigamy and not Double Bigamy (All theWay) at all.

The real interview is scheduled for some restaurant two nights later and I get ready with a few shots of Maker’s Mark. And two dozen Robitussin pills. And some codeine cough medicine. And whatever else I can find in my sock drawer.

Gorgeous up-and-coming attorney Dana, who is my wife, is putting on her makeup. Handsome, well-spoken Anthony, who is my brother and my wife’s husband, is tying his tie. And physician’s assistant/musician Aesop, who is my wife’s husband and my husband’s husband, is combing his hair.

I’m lining up a couple more shots of Maker’s Mark.

By the time we hit the restaurant, I look like this:

And the real interview – not the pre-interview – has started and the camera is snapping pictures, but I am busy watching a particularly aggressive French fry on my plate attack the weaker French fries. That little fucker shows no mercy!

And I point it out to the kids but I’m not sure I’m even speaking English because they don’t understand my words. The aggressive French fry – and I’ve named him Maximilian – is launching an offensive on my coffee but the coffee in this place isn’t strong enough to defend itself. It is a massacre.

And just before I pass out, Maximilian tells me not to worry. Maximilian has it all under control. Maximilian says I should go towards the light.

*          *          *          *          *

For two hundred days now, we’ve been living this Double Bigamy (All the Way). And for two hundred days now, no one has noticed. But here we are on day two hundred and three and someone has noticed. It has all been leading up to this.

“Mom, is Kaykay dead?” my daughter asks. She asks this matter-of-factly.

“No,” Dana says. She is looking to Aesop for some kind of confirmation.

And Aesop, he looks calm. Confident. “It’s just a stomach bug.”

“Just a stomach bug,” says the reporter. “She doesn’t look like she’s breathing. And why are you sniffing her coffee and going through her pockets?”

“Just a stomach bug,” Aesop says. He is checking my pulse. “But I’m gonna to call 9-1-1 anyway. Just to be extra-extra-cautious.”

*          *          *          *          *

So it’s my wife and her husband and his husband (who is also my husband) and our kids and they’re sitting in some waiting room at some hospital. They are waiting to hear whether Aesop or my daughter were correct in their respective assessments. Their assessments of me.

The real live journalist with real official press credentials is long gone, says she’ll “reschedule” the interview. But we know she never will.

Go towards the light, Katy!

And elsewhere, late that night, at some little corner restaurant in Houston, the body of some dish washer on the night shift is found in some back room.

The body is mangled. Chewed.

Pieces of the body are missing.

A long line of ketchup stretches from the body and on out the back door into the alley.

Maximilian tells me not to worry. Maximilian has it all under control.

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**To see an interview I did not manage to hijack, check out my friend Rafa’s RudeBlog. You’ll be glad you did. **

Afraid of the Dark

I was born afraid of the dark.

I have always been afraid of the dark.

There was no “before”. Never a comforting night. Even before I was born, I remember. I swear it is true. I remember. And though they say to me, “Impossible!” I remember. There I was, floating, not even a proper person yet to speak of, but already there was fear. There was fear and there was the generalized stickiness of the womb.

But I did not fear that part. The generalized stickiness, I mean. For I have never been afraid of stickiness. Not one bit. So it is true I can take pride in that much, at least.