specialagency.net

Happy VD

from youyesyou.net

It's not that I dislike Valentine's Day, exactly. I'm sure it's all very nice, if you're into such things, and the candy and chocolate is always welcome around these parts.

But first there were all those years in elementary school when the Valentine's Day ritual was for the girls in the class to deliver awful ten-cents-a-dozen cards to all the boys. Printed on newsprint-weight paper, these cards would say things like, "You're Swell!!", or "Be Mine!!", or would have a picture of a simpering cartoon bear with a "I Like You Bear-y Much!!" t-shirt on. And while the popular boys quickly accumulated heaps of valentines day cards, we geeky nelly boys sat silently ignored at our desks, terrified that we would go home cardless, and equally terrified that we wouldn't.

Then there was that string of years, now thankfully over, when I would find myself dating people I started geting sick of just around Valentine's Day. So I would have to grit my teeth and suffer through tediously romantic candlelit dinners at overpriced restaurants, mouthing empty saccharine platitudes to the bozo across the table just so I wouldn't end up becoming "that asshole who dumped me on Valentine's Day" in someone's personal folklore.

I don't dislike Valentine's Day, I really don't. I've just decided that this year I want to opt out of anything heart-shaped or cherubic. My original plan was to do something completely unromantic today -- we were going to buy Ho-Hos from the White Hen and watch bad soft-core porn on Showtime -- but Dan vetoed the idea. I think the current plan involves Bugs Bunny cartoons and Chinese take-out, and maybe some Scrabble. I don't know; we'll make it up as we go along.

In the meantime, the rest of you, please enjoy your Valentine's Day. I love you all bear-y much. You're swell, darlings. You really are.

Bridal

The WeddingChannel web forums are what I had in mind, funny enough.

I had been told that the best information to be found was on the web, not necessarily on the directory sites, but in the message boards. They are difficult to sift through. More importantly, I was looking for specific information, not new friends to share my experience with. The real names and user names of the posters showed that they were nearly all women who were engaged to men and planning traditional weddings.

Women own this process.

I have encountered nothing but professional warmth and hospitality in my business dealings so far. But I suspect that any strangeness comes less from my being half of a gay couple--although there certainly is novelty there--than in the absence of a strong woman to provide her opinions and ideas in negotiations. I sense this because the people I speak with can not keep the B word out of their mouths, no matter how hard they try.

Everything is supposed to be about the bride. Our box of hand-me-downs includes the Massachusetts Bridal Directory and Boston Bride magazines. We truly are reading them for the articles.

Do I blame the professionals for their habits? Of course not. The planners are thinking on their feet when they deal with us. And so I could laugh when one woman excused a moment of confusion by saying with all sincerity, "I'm sorry, but I've never dealt with boy brides before."

Clocks

The intersection of online message boards and wedding culture are odd places indeed -- sites like the forums at WeddingChannel. It's a match that was surely inevitable, for the messsage board is a great tool for the the obsessed, and the wedding industry has survived on the backs of fanatics since long before human lips first uttered the phrase, "OMG!!1".
Rita and I spent some time reading these things last winter and spring, when we were planning our wedding. I had thought, to that point, that I had paid my dues as far as message board culture was concerned, but two things struck me as unusual about these particular specimens. The first was the rampant font piracy.
The second was the sigs, huge and animated: twenty-second slideshows depicting the couple in front of various landmarks, overlaid with the words "Rebecca and Todd, June 4 2003" in sixteen-point white Zapf Chancery; clocks counting down the seconds until the the wedding began; counters that showed how many invitations had been sent, how many received back, and the numbers of acceptances and declinations.
But none of that was quite as weird as the people who were already married. They shouldn't have surprised me -- there always seems to be a segment of a given message community that is no longer directly involved topic of discussion itself, and in the case of weddings there's a lot of value in it being that way -- but some of it got creepy. In particular, some of the sigs got creepy. The clocks counting up, with their implicit "I've lasted this long" sentiment, always bothered me. And a thermometer-like graphic showing the progress of pregnancy, provided by Fertility Friend, seemed especially popular.
There's useful stuff there too, if you look for it. There's a lot of discussion of particular photographers, florists and so forth, and if you can figure out how to ignore the posts that are actually by the florists themselves (incognito, with huge "Together forever" graphics at the bottom of their posts), the information is generally helpful.

Special Agency Gay Gay Gay!

Seriously. I got an e-mail yesterday from someone I hadn't spoken to in a while. He found the agency through one of those social networking sites (ack!). A somewhat awkward exchange followed. He was all (subtly), "You moved to San Francisco for dudes?" and I was all (subtly), "Nope! Still sleeping with chicks!" He had a point. Even when I'm not writing about gay marriage, I'm writing about fruit.

In no particular order (and certainly not all at once): Booze, sports, and rock music.

The three greatest sporting events I've attended are easy to pick out. First: July 13, 1999, Fenway Park. The 1999 All-Star Game was out of control. Ted Williams was there. Pete Rose was there. Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Warren Spahn, and Bob Feller were there. From my seats along the first-base line, I saw the fly-over materialize over the Green Monster a split second before it was past us. Later, friends in Somerville told me they thought we'd had an earthquake.

Oh yeah. Pedro Martinez struck out five of the National League's first six batters in the most incredible pitching performance I have ever seen. I saw Dwight Gooden in his prime; that night, Doctor K was a chump.

Two: October 16, 2000, Shea Stadium. Mike Hampton shuts down the Cardinals, and the Mets win the NLCS for the first time since 1986. Forget the embarrassment that followed in the World Series. If you haven't heard 55,000 people singing along to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" you won't be well prepared for the rapture. Robin Ventura's grand-slam single, earlier that postseason, would have made the list. If I hadn't had to leave after the twelfth to catch a flight.

Three: March 14, 1998, Maples Pavilion. No. 16 seed Harvard makes history, upsetting No. 1 seed Stanford in the first round of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. Before there was pizza and beer with the Leland Stanford, Junior, University Marching Band. Afterwards I danced with a dude in a tree suit. In between, the biggest upset in the history of tournament basketball. I didn't sit the entire game.

I took the most pleasure in the triumphs at these games. But I couldn't help taking pleasure in Stanford's loss. Not because I felt any ill will towards them, but because they were so good. It's painful to watch a weak team get beat up; it's awesome to see the mighty fall.

If you missed the Stanford men in their stunning win over Arizona last week, you missed a great college basketball game. These guys are undefeated, and there's not a lot of season left. Saturday night they play at Cal, and we have tickets. I'm looking forward to seeing someone cry.

Congratulations, Phyllis and Del!

While back east they're still debating Mark's divorce, two senior citizens in San Francisco made history. Not only are they adorable, they've been together for fifty-one years.

Fifty-one years.

I was going to say something else (about how I was on the bus yesterday, reading about the Berkeley student whose performance on American Idol was so bad that he was singled out by Jimmy Fallon on Weekend Update, and then I realized that that guy was sitting right in front of me! And I only noticed him because two different strangers congratulated him on having the courage to follow his dream) but you know what? This is too good. I'm going to celebrate a little.

Wedding

Enough about the law for a moment. Let's talk about the real challenges of gay marriage.

Some background. I have been "different" for as long as I can remember. At recess, I would dodge the kickball game and wander over to play Guiding Light with the girls. When my grandmother came to babysit, my brother set off fireworks in the street with his friends. I learned how to crochet.

Yet despite my unusual hobbies, I never crossed over the lines of gender into the realm of wedding fantasy. I always believed that a wedding was some task I would have to accomplish when I found a woman that I could marry some time in college. I never gave a thought to the color of the boutonniere I would wear or the most appropriate processional music because the only feeling I had for a wedding was dread. There would be a rabbi and maybe my parents would know what to do. It was part of the world I would have to go along with, not the life I would create.

Coming out did not bring weddings any closer to the front of my mind. Neither did entering a long-term relationship. My partner and I belong to different religions. I have a strong distaste for the market dominance of UU clergy and no wish to antagonize my family with a ceremony I would not particularly respect.

In this sense, we were as unprepared for the Supreme Judicial Court's decision as the many legislators who are meeting today in Boston to decide its outcome.

Of course we're getting married. We decided that right away.

I have begun to collect books and magazines, to make phone calls, and to seek out the help of professionals. I've gone to the web sites and message boards.

And in beginning this process, I have encountered thousands of other individuals who are planning their own ceremonies. I have joined a world where girls imagine themselves in beautiful dresses and sunlit mansions. They rehearse their lines and share their dramatic visions of beaches and poetry and tears. Each one has cast herself as the star of her own show. And just like 20 years ago, I am the strange, solitary boy who has wandered into their midst and has no idea how to join in.

More on the FMA

Dahlia Lithwick, of whom we should all be enamored, takes up Federal Marriage Amendment issue in Slate today. She writes, "A Defense of Marriage Amendment would enshrine, for the first time, language of intolerance and exclusion in a document that was intended to set forth basic rights." I had no idea she was a loyal reader. Commentary from people who generally know what they're talking about follows at the Volokh Conspiracy, starting here. While I assume the legal analysis here is basically sound, I do have a quibble with this: "But the 'does he want to be remembered as a bigot?' argument strikes me as an argument that's simply premised on the assumption that one is right, and that of course everyone else should just see that, since, well, I'm right, darn it." Whether or not one considers oneself a bigot is irrelevant to whether or not one actually is a bigot. People make judgments every day based on the assumption that they are right. And, in time, I believe most everyone else will see that we are. Since we're right, darn it.

More from Lithwick: "If Massachusetts legalizes gay marriage, the argument goes, the floodgates are open." Paging Mayor Newsom.

Fulbright Followup

Good sense has prevailed in the Berkeley Fulbright matter. The Fulbright board has agreed to review the tardy applications, and if they merit the award, the UC will shake down FedEx for the cash. The university and the government do not seem to have consulted Federal Express in reaching this agreement. "Sure, we'll overnight the check to you."

I worry that Acting Deputy Secretary Eugene Hickok, the gentlemen running point for the Education Department on this one, won't be dropping the "Acting" from his title any time soon. Even administrations with budget issues don't like denying students lunch money on technicalities. But the dude writes a hell of a press release. My favorite part: "When a package is time-sensitive, most people go to great lengths to ensure that it is taken care of. Instead, the university chose the 'FedEx ate my homework' excuse, which is not acceptable." Also, Berkeley, your cursive penmanship needs improvement. I heard that.

more on the nannies and the serfs.

And the feminists, of course. I finally read the whole Flanagan article (the article itself won't be available on the web for a while yet, sorry), and there was little frothing at the mouth, but there was a good amount of throwing up my hands in disgust. And, having coherent thoughts to organize this time, I actually wrote and sent a letter to the editor. If they don't print it, I'll reproduce it here. To give you a hint, though, here's what I used for an outline:

• is exploitation really necessary to process? nannies aren't by necessity illegal immigrants, but you'd never know that from this article.
• if you want someone to clean your house, you don't hire a nanny.
• (main point) where are the men in this? why does she treat childcare like an exclusively female problem?

What I didn't get in to in the letter was the whole problem of attitude. Now, clearly some large portion of my problem with Caitlin Flanagan is envy--I don't think it's any secret that I'd throw over both grad school and the magazine in order to have a job like hers--but an equally large part of my problem is her attitude. In both the nanny article and the housewife article, the strongest impression I'm left with is that she doesn't approve of any choice women have open to them. Work and don't have kids? Not good enough, you're missing out. Don't work and stay at home with your kids? Not good enough, you'll just get depressed. Work and leave your kids with a care provider? Not good enough, you'll be heartbroken over being separated from your kids. Work and send the kids to day care? Not good enough, everyone knows that only losers use day care. Work (or don't work) and have a nanny? Not good enough, you're contributing to the oppression of illegal immigrants, and female illegal immigrants at that, so you're multiply selling out your feminist ideals.

After a while, it starts to feel lazy. It's very easy to criticize everything, especially when you're analyzing a complicated and difficult situation. I just wish she offered something more constructive in return for all the snide negativity.

Radio on.

I started listening to AM talk radio on the first of the cross-country drives last summer. At first it was just part of a desperate search for something other than classic rock to listen to while driving through Idaho and Montana--I love classic rock as much as the next former garage-band groupie, but there's only so much falsetto singing and big guitar a girl can take, especially while driving ten- and twelve-hour days. And maybe (certainly) it's a sign of what a little bubble I live in, but AM talk radio is like this whole weird other country.

Some of it is the politically-conservative viewpoint (more on that later), but a lot of it is just that the grammar of the experience is different. I'm used to NPR, with all the soothing rounded Susan Stamberg and Carl Kasell voices. The standard AM talk-radio voice seems to be harsher, like there's a value placed on lack of polish. And that's before you get to the advertising. These programs seem to be equal parts content and advertising, and the talk radio personalities do a lot of product endorsement. (A lot of product endorsement. In a typical hour's worth of commercials during Dr Laura, you'll hear the good doctor endorsing air purifiers, a matchmaking service, foam mattresses, a calcium supplement, a service for (I think) student tutoring, and her very own brand of multivitamin.) It's all so different! And that's before you even take in to account that so many of these shows seem to be just hours at a stretch of the hosts finding things to be angry about, and then taking calls from other people who are angry. There's a lot of anger out there in AM talk-radio land. There's not a whole lot of anger on NPR.

And then, yeah, the conservative viewpoint. I'm not sure there's anything of interest I can say about that.

At any rate, that's what Mark's experience as a kind of Freeper spy made me think of--the mixture of "where do these people come from?" and "so this is the kind of thinking that leads people to vote the way they do" that I feel when listening to talk radio--except that his thing is a lot more interactive.

California Suck Watch

This may or may not become a regular item, depending on the outcome of negotiations with Governor Schwarzenegger. You can probably put your money on "regular item."

Every morning I get on BART, go to work, then get back on BART. This in itself is an issue: BART disallows food and drink on its trains. Compared to Boston, where they populate T stations with Dunkin' Donuts, this is positively barbaric. As a result, I have to pay San Francisco prices for coffee, which is an absolute outrage.

Today, the BART schedules changed. Not particularly significantly, just a few minutes in each direction. This creates one small problem. Until today, trains left my home station for my work station and my work station for my home station every fifteen minutes, on exactly the same schedule starting at five minutes past the hour. This made my life easier than you can possibly imagine. Starting today, one schedule starts at four minutes and the other at seven minutes past the hour. A trial, I tell you.

The major gripe is in execution. My train this morning was a few minutes late, and I had to rush my bagel to make it to my Monday morning meeting. Coming home was worse. The Richmond trains were nonexistent. I stood and watched as several trains to all points passed me by, some nearly empty. How BART deals with delays baffles me. Through San Francisco all of the trains on every line run on the same tracks. While I'm sure it isn't trivial, I have to believe it's possible to divert a train from one line to another when it turns around at the terminus. Instead, most commuters are spoiled with an embarrassment of transit, while a few are forced to wait for a train that may never come.

When it came, the driver was clearly drunk. The train heaved and lurched its way under the San Francisco Bay like it had legs. To make matters worse, the only available seat was next to a Deaniac (I could tell by his hat); the feedback loop of bitter malaise was out of control. To pass the time I played an absolutely miserable game of cell phone golf, finishing two over. Every manner of wind played havoc with my game, and the greens were far too fast.

All this after they raised my fare by a dollar a day last month. At least they're considering raising tolls on Bay Area bridges. While three dollars for a round trip on the Bay Bridge might be an unbearable hardship, we've got to make touch choices to keep this state afloat.

Constitutional Convention

I can make myself lightheaded just by thinking that the Massachusetts legislature will meet on Wednesday to debate and schedule my divorce.

Regarding Kid Rock

I spend more time than I should reading Free Republic. I know better than to take the average Freeper as a representative of Republican or conservative dogma, but I can't resist thinking that he is representative of something unusually significant and important in America.

And so I read Free Republic to learn what a vocal segment of America is thinking and saying when they're among friends. Since much of what they think and say applies to me, I also read it to test my detachment. So far my detachment is holding up quite well. The one exception was when a poster described how when he found himself in Disney World on Gay Day his response was to play a "game" with his kid to aim his toy gun at as many "targets" in red shirts as he could find. Fun for everyone. But I can easily go on their site and post as a Massachusetts resident angry with gay marriage just so I can gain credibility to post about other, less controversial matters.

It is not news that there are a few cranks and nuts everywhere. I had come to respect the internal coherence of many of the belief systems of Free Republic posters as much as I disagreed with most everything they actually believed and how they arrived at their conclusions.

And so, their response to the Kid Rock scandal disappointed me in a way that their reaction to the Goodridge decision could not. Many posters will argue that it is ok for Kid Rock to wear a flag with a slit in it because he supported the troops by visiting Iraq. Kid Rock is a good patriot. He should be excused.

But what about the veterans who were watching the show?

They should know that Kid Rock is a patriot. Why is the VFW complaining anyway? They should be fighting Kerry.

How can a true patriot not know the proper way to treat a flag?

Even President Bush signed a small flag when a fan handed it to him last year.

Interesting point. Wait, I can't say that.

If you're curious about how some flag defenders talk about the issue when it concerns someone they otherwise agree with, you can read the thread for yourself.

Names have been changed

Back when I worked in the children's book store, we used to sell these little letter beads which could be strung on a chain to form a name necklace. Like the miniature pirates, Chris Crutcher, and half the other items for sale, these were more popular with the staff than with the customers. As you might expect, S-A-R-A-H became T-H-E-O-R-Y W-H-O-R-E became S-U-C-K I-T, and then we had to ban them entirely. It's a terrible shame when people abuse little letter beads.

The best-laid plans...

I was all set to do something I shouldn't-- took my ID out of my wallet and left my cell phone home. Only later, waiting for a friend, did I remember the barrettes in my hair. I was being cute today so I had in the name kind. You know, the ones from middle school, one on each side of my head: E-L-E-A-N-O-R.

Greetings all. Just popping in. I'll be around from time to time.