Gay marriage update, celebrity edition

So, apparently Ellen and Portia are going to tie the knot. You know, if you can believe the National Enquirer. (And, often, you can.)

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/63692

The festivities will take place in June in a beautiful new home near Oprah Winfrey's palatial spread in Montecito, the wealthy community next to Santa Barbara.Although Ellen and Portia have been blissfully happy at their current residence — a 140-acre ranch home in the wine country above Santa Barbara — they instantly fell in love with the intimate Spanish-style villa built by famed architect G.W. Smith, and knew right away it would be the perfect backdrop for their ceremony.
"They're going to have a late afternoon outdoor wedding, possibly catered by Portia's favorite hotel, the San Ysidro Ranch," revealed the friend.
Portia, who has taken on the "housewife" role since her TV series "Arrested Development" was canceled, is handling most of the wedding arrangements — but the wine and music will be Ellen's responsibility. Ellen has become a wine connoisseur while living in the vineyard-rich Santa Ynez Valley, and she's picking her favorite local reds and whites for the wedding feast, said the friend.And Ellen, who has become close friends with Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin recently, is hoping to have Elton perform a few piano numbers at the reception.
She's also enlisting the help of her show's DJ, Jonny Abrahams, to spin tunes for the guests.
The couple has been together since meeting at a VH1 awards show in December 2004. At the time, both were in relationships with other women, but immediately dumped their significant others to be together.In recent years, Ellen has kept her personal life out of the Hollywood spotlight and plans to keep the guest list small, says the friend — just family, key staffers from Ellen's show, a few of Portia's pals from "Arrested Development" and some close show business friends."Ellen and Portia have settled into a comfortable and loving domestic situation — staying in L.A. during the week while Ellen shoots the show and heading up to their home near Santa Barbara on the weekends," added the friend.
"The commitment ceremony is the next logical step."

And then there's that other "married" lesbian we know and love. This is from afterellen.com:

BECAUSE REALLY, WE'RE ALL THE SAME, EXCEPT FOR THAT LACKING IN BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS THING. There's an interesting new article on PopMatters.com called "Gay TV: Making Same-Sex Marriage Safe for America" about the effect of TV lesbians and gay men on the gay marriage debate. The piece is focused most on analyzing (and praising) Rosie O'Donnell on The View, concluding that "Rosie O’Donnell is doing exactly what she needs to be doing to make same-sex marriage less threatening or offensive to her audience: appearing not so different from any straight counterpart". But she and other gay TV characters are doing this by taking the sex out of homosexuality, because "In order to reach out to people who are freaked out by gay sex either because they find it 'ewwwwy' or because they’ve been taught that it’s an 'abomination', it’s safer for Rosie to talk about poopie diapers than Sapphic desires."
Overall, it's a remarkably insightful article for a non-gay publication, even if it is a bit disconcerting to read the phrases "poopie diapers" and "Sapphic desires" in the same sentence.

What? They broke up? Really?

If you're not watching The Amazing Race, you're missing the best reality show on TV. And Sunday night, you missed the elimination of Peter and Sarah. She's an amputee. He's an asshole. They were dating, emphasis on the WERE.

Here's a postrace interview: http://tv.ign.com/articles/741/741464p1.html

And some highlights:

IGN TV: You've known each other for seven years, but how long had you been in a romantic relationship when you began the race?
Sarah: We had only recently started dating. We had both been coming out of relationships. I had been breaking up with a man that was living with me at the time and Peter had gotten out of a relationship. We had always flirted with each other and the idea [of going out] and we started seeing each other and dating. And then we went on the race, which, even though we knew each other for a long time, I think we were sort of imagining in some ways that there would be moments for nice sunsets and all of the rest of it. But then you get into the reality of it and it was really crazy and hectic, and I think we got to see how we both operate under very stressful conditions. You just see different colors and different sides. It didn't turn into the romantic experience that we thought.

IGN TV: You guys had competed together before in different competitions though, right? Was this just such a different level of intensity?
Peter: We never really competed together. In triathlon and running, it's an individual sport, so you just rely on yourself. So this was the first time we really had to race as a team.

IGN TV: So the Race just opened up seeing different facets of each other?
Sarah: Exactly. You do get to see someone in a very different way when you have to sleep in airports and just race, and you're tired, and you haven't eaten. You're stressed out because you can't read the signs; are you going in the right direction? There's a level of stress that you live with and you get to see different sides of a person.

IGN TV: Peter, there were fans who were upset about some of your confrontations with Sarah. How do you think you came off on the show?
Peter: You know, I have no regrets of the race, and I think you see one part of it. They never show any post-interviews of me praising Sarah and what a great job she's doing. You see me lying in a boat, but I was actually standing for a couple of hours cheering her on and cheering everyone on. And just being aggressive; wanting to win! And to see Sarah win The Amazing Race and all the people it could have helped, and does help and did help… It was a race and I wanted to do well and I think a lot of stuff is left out. They caught me at some bad moments, but I had a lot of great moments too. And I think when each leg of the race ended, we always reflected back on how can we grow from this and communicate a little bit better. Hey, we just wanted to win and sometimes you have to push the envelope. I didn't want to be somebody walking through the race and casually getting through it like some of the other teams. We were the leaders of The Amazing Race 10. All the other teams looked at us as being the leaders and the front runners, and we had to race that way. So it's not always the best scenario, but it got us two first place [finishes], a second, a third and then the first to the Forbidden City. Not too bad for us.

My favorite way to consume Apples ....

At the risk of living up to my "Haroldina" nickname (Dad's name is Harold, and sometimes I do things that bring him to mind), I'm going to confess that I love Mac/PC ads. The dude who plays "Mac" (Justin Long from "Accepted," "Ed" and thank you, IMDB, "Galaxy Quest") is adorable, and the Gatesian PC actor is hilarious in his stiffness.

Of course, wikipedia has info, including synopses of all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac

Better - Mac praises the PC's ability with spreadsheets, but explains that he is "better with life stuff," such as music, pictures, and movies. PC defensively asks what Mac means by "better" to which Mac replies that it's easier for Mac to make a website or photobook. PC replies, "oh, that kind of better. I was thinking of the other kind." The ad cuts to the ending splash screen with Mac saying off-camera, "What other kind?"

Work vs. Home - Mac explains how he likes doing "fun stuff" like movies, music, and podcasts. PC says he also does "fun stuff" like time sheets, spreadsheets, and pie charts. Mac says it's hard to capture a family vacation using a pie chart, however PC rebuts by showing a pie chart representing "hangout time" and "just kicking it."

I'm still not going to buy a Mac or an iPod, but I will go to the site and watch all of these entertaining little character sketches.

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

This is the view from my new dentist's office ... no kiddin'!

I'm just so glad it wasn't one of my kids ....

ANTIGO, Wis. (AP) — A toddler who went fishing for a stuffed cartoon character in a vending machine wound up sharing space with the toy inside the game's plastic cubicle.
Three-year-old Robert Moore tried to scoop out a stuffed replica of SpongeBob SquarePants with the vending machine's plastic crane on Saturday, but had no luck on his first attempt.
While his grandmother, Fredricka Bierdemann, turned her back to get another dollar for a second try, Robert took off his coat and squeezed through an opening in the machine. He landed in the stuffed animal cube.
"I turned around and looked for him, and he said, 'Oma, I'm in here," Bierdemann said. "I thought I would have a heart attack."
Store employees couldn't find a key to the machine, so Robert waited while the Anti-go Fire Department was called.
"He was having a ball in there, hugging all the stuffed animals," Bierdemann said. "He was so good-natured, but I was shaking like a leaf."
Firefighters broke one lock but then spotted two latches inside the plastic cube. They passed a screwdriver to Robert, who eventually freed himself.
He went home safe — but without a stuffed Sponge Bob.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-10-25-boy-vending-spongebob_x.htm

This is me, not quitting

OK, so I didn't post for a while. But I'm back in the swing, here (every post is me) and here (not every post is me, just the ones about video downloads):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/ASDQOJGOVEX58

Like it's 1989 again, Part 2

So I listened to a CD today. Whoopee, right? Well, an act that pretty much defined my musical entertainment for much of my life has become something I rarely do. In part, that's because I don't drive for two hours a day anymore. But it's also 'cause I'm getting, you know, older.

I remember my shock when I learned that my co-workers only listened to talk radio. They didn't seem that old, or like their souls had withered to empty husks. Now, I understand. Well, I understand that I no longer crave fresh music the way I did.

Still, every once in a while, I will try something new. Didn't so much love the new Christina Aguilera, though I like the fact that she really sings. But I really do love the new Keane, "Under the Iron Sea." They're the guys who did the song about "Somewhere Only We Know." And while I've not quite made it through the album that song is on, I tried the new one. And it was AWESOME.

Click here and scroll down to hear samples. Choose any track: They all have a certain yearning majesty I just adore. http://www.amazon.com/Under-Iron-Sea-Keane/dp/B000FBHT1C/sr=8-1/qid=1161752146/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-1231922-6520159?ie=UTF8&s=music

It's fun to have that feeling: You know the one, where you're super excited about not just a song, but an entire album's worth of songs. I've not felt that way in a while … probably almost since I was wearing 501s.

Like it's 1989 again, part 1

So I bought some jeans last week. Whoopee, right? Well, I'm getting more joy from these particular jeans than from anything I've bought lately. They are Levi's 501s, and the last time I wore a pair I was twentysomething instead of thirtysomething. Early twentysomething.

They're not the same kind of 501s I had "back in the day." They're "preshrunk," which means I don't have to do the math of inseam plus 3 inches (or is it 4) and waist plus 2 inches (or is it 3). The amazing thing is that they were only $24.99, which is about what I paid "back in the day."

My only regret is that they're not smaller. … But my ass is my ass.

Eleanor Roosevelt had good taste

From Rush & Malloy (NY Daily News), who took a time out from covering the Paris Hiltons of the world to bring us this gossipy tidbit …

Did First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt have the hots for aviatrix Amelia Earhart?
Biographers have long speculated about Roosevelt's close friendship with reporter Lorena Hickock. Now comes author Gore Vidal to assert that FDR's wife lusted after Earhart.
"Eleanor did like my father [Gene Vidal] because he was close to Amelia Earhart, for whom she had a Sapphic passion that Amelia found disconcerting," Vidal writes in his second memoir, "Point to Point Navigation."
"Amelia said that Eleanor was always suggesting they make flights together all around the country, just the two of them, communing with the wind and the stars."
When Earhart's plane disappeared, Vidal quotes Roosevelt saying, "I made my own small investigation. ... I harassed everyone connected with the flight and the search." He says she concluded that, contrary to rumor, Earhart hadn't been spying but "simply lost her way."


A slightly less dismissive view of Amelia's potential interest in flying on "both sides of the Atlantic" ….
http://www.amazingdreamspublishing.com/patricianellwarren/lesbiansports1-2005.html

An Interesting RelationshipMuch has been speculated about their relationship. It may have one of those marriages of convenience that stud the history of American celebrities. Gay historians point out that prominent closeted lesbians and bisexual women have often covered their tracks this way. In Hollywood, Dietrich, Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Kay Francis, Tullulah Bankhead and Agnes Moorhead (to name a few) made such marriages. Even non-gay authors ponder the question. Donald Goldstein, co-author of "Amelia: The Centennial Biography of an Aviation Pioneer," said: "I think she and George truly liked and respected each other .... I don't think they had sex, for what that's worth. She may have been gay, and if she wasn't, she was [sexually] neutral. But I think their marriage worked. Amelia was a feminist without being a man-hater." Significantly, the couple had no children.

Ellen and the lesbian anaconda

I've not been watching Ellen lately (I'm more into the View with Rosie). Here is something very good that I missed (thanks, Defamer.com!):

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/ellen-degeneres/ellen-vs-the-20-ft-lesbian-anaconda-208904.php

Steam trains are loud!!!

Ridin' the rails with the boys

So Cheryl, aka the Mistress of Fall Fun, bought the family tickets on the Pumpkin Express, which is a steam train that runs from Elbe to ... a few miles from Elbe, up near Mount Rainier. It was a ton of fun, and I'm not even a train freak (there were a few of those on board, wearing their shirts from other railways). Our boys wore their Thomas costumes, of course.

We got to stop, pick up punkins and candy ... and trade one engine for another, which would have been cooler if not for the oily steam raining down on us the whole way home. Ah well. Some call it "icky," others consider it "character." I'll go with "character."

Yup, it's a steam train!

This is the yard I liberated from blackberries ... coming soon, a picture of it fenced!

Paintin' punkins at the Y. Maybe someday I'll work out there again ...

So how do you know if you're addicted?

Are you addicted if you like to tinker on the 'puter ... while watching TV? Naaah.

From New Scientist, via Slashdot (yes, I know it's ironic that I found this ONLINE):
"Nearly 14% of respondents said they found it difficult to stay away from the internet for several days and 12% admitted that they often remain online longer than expected. More than 8% of those surveyed said they hid internet use from family, friends and employers, and the same percentage confessed to going online to flee from real-world problems. Approximately 6% also said their personal relationships had suffered as a result of excessive internet usage. 'Potential markers of problematic internet use are present in a sizeable portion of the population,' the researchers note."


http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/19/1931239&from=rss

A transit cornucopia, or how many ways can I get to to work?

I've really put my FlexPass to the test this week, due to a variety of circumstances, including laziness, a doctor's appointment and lingering effects of cold medicine. Or maybe just more laziness.

Anyhoo, the week began with a bus ride in from downtown Tacoma after I minded the boys while Cheryl went to a church-related meeting at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. I did the Tacoma thing because I could catch an express bus at 10 a.m. (in Federal Way, my usual bus connection, the last express leaves at 7:26 -- and this will become important later). So I took the 590 to Seattle, a Sound Transit thing, which means slightly plusher seats, but slightly less leg room. It was a fairly crowded bus, though there were seats for all. And I was TIRED. So I fell asleep instead of working. And woke up when the poor woman next to me gave me a gentle shove. I had slipped over into her personal space, you see, and though I'm hope I seem like a perfectly nice person, I don't expect people to let me just fall asleep on their shoulder before I've even introduced myself.

Leaving from downtown Tacoma has an advantage: I can take the train OR the bus home. I went with the train, though it's actually slower than the bus (except in extreme traffic situations). The train left Seattle at 5:40 and got into T-Town at 6:30. I was home around 7.

The next day, I took the 177 from the old Federal Way park 'n' ride. It used to be damned near impossible to find a place to park there, but now the "cool" routes go to the shiny new transit center with the parking garage, about a quarter-mile away. So, people like me (who aren't picky) get easy parking and a comfy ride.

I should mention that I took the 177 because I missed the last 196, which is the bus that I prefer. It leaves from the park 'n' ride closest to our house (about a 12-minute drive, including a quick detour for a very large diet Coke). Miss the last 196 at 8:08, and you can still get the last 177 at 8:26. Miss the last 177 ....

And you have a journey like I had this morning.

I didn't commute in on Wednesday. I worked from home, and went to the doctor. Thursday morning, it was back to work, but a cold that had been nagging at me all week was still nagging. I had the hardest time getting out of bed. And it's not that I was unaware of the time ... I just had trouble mustering the energy to care. So, I missed the last 196 and the last 177. This meant I could either drive all the way to Tacoma ... or see what Federal Way had for me. I knew I didn't want to take the 174, which has an average speed of about 30 mph and stops every 10 feet along Pacific Highway. But the 194 ... that I could do. It only stopped at a couple of park 'n' rides and the airport. And I got to work by 9:30. It was late-ish by my current standards, but I've been working every night (the curse of the take-home computer) so I wasn't too worried.

I took the 577 home, which was great in the sense that it was very fast: A true express from downtown, stopping nowhere between my office and the shmancy Federal Way park 'n' ride. It was a half-hour trip, made smooth by HOV goodness, while the 177 gets bogged on the 320th on ramp. If you've not experience the 320th on-ramp, just imagine the arteries of someone who eats bacon for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.

This leaves me with two things to ponder: What means of transport shall I use tomorrow? And, should I go back on the Atkins diet?

"Halloween is coming up in a minute of soon."

So says Eddie, who just asked what time it is.

It's also time for me to either do some more blogging, or quit. I'm going to do some more first. Then, maybe, I'll quit.

The rototiller is my friend. My angry, sharp friend who's hard to start and harder to control.

So I think I've already told you about our newly discovered chunk of yard, and my blood feud with the blackberries that had taken it over. The wounds are mostly healed now, so I won't belabor that -- until I clear the truly nasty and entrenched bit next to our driveway.

But for now, I'll celebrate the even, if somewhat sloped ground that is now ours to do with as we see fit. It was, just a week or so ago, ankle-sprainingly lumpy and messed up. But I borrowed my neice's rototiller and tore the crap out of the chunky clumps of grass and roots. A rototiller is quite a powerful device. And maybe someday I'll learn more about them. For this job, though, I just read enough to learn how to start it and maneuver it without losing a limb (i.e. at least half of the quick start guide).

Basically, a rototiller (or cultivator) is a couple of very angry blade-wheels that dig up whatever. (In our case, they dug up some barbed wire in addition to the garden-variety dirt -- remnants of the old farm fencing that I had to unwind from the blade-wheel's axle. Good times.) I'm not sure when I'll need to pull out the rototiller again, but I look forward to it and dread it both. It's tiring, difficult, moderately scary but ultimately satisfying work. Not unlike the entire blackberry vendetta.

The beads on the bus

There's a woman who sits across from me on the bus, fidgeting and talking to herself. But it's not what you think, if you're thinking of unpleasant public transit stereotypes. She's not covered in mysterious stains or exuding mysterious smells. She's a perfectly nice, quiet woman of indeterminate middle age, on her way to work. And she prays the rosary, sometimes the whole way.
I mean, the drivers make me nervous too at times. They can get a little lead-footed. But this woman is either seriously worried about physical harm or her soul or both because the second the wheels begin to turn, her wheels begin to turn as well. The prayers and bead-caressing begin. I also feel like she's looking at my with a particular intensity, somehow sizing me up, or perhaps challenging me to challenge her, since I clearly notice her behavior.
The other day, I ran into her at Costco. I'm surprised I noticed, considering that my first-born son was having a total nut-out over the fact that he didn't get to hand our receipt to the person checking carts at the exit. She gave me that same look, plus a slight, smilish rise of the lip. Maybe someday I'll actually talk to her instead of merely filling in the blanks.

More Paula Poundstone ...

OK, so I got distracted for a few days and failed to fully convey the hilarity of Paula Poundstone. Here's some of what she said at her private show for employees of the Big Internet Retailer I work for:

"I have terrible short-term memory loss, but I prefer to think of it as presidential eligibility."
She told us something else about herself:
"I have OCD. I cannot stop talking for the life of me and I managed to turn it into a career.Which is a good thing. But not socially."
And then she riffed on the Big Internet Retailer, after first seeming surprised that it sells not just books but pretty much everything. Here's how she responded to hearing that she was in just one BIR building in Seattle:
"There's another building? There's many buildings? Hey, if this 'selling everything' takes off, there will be many, many buildings."
She remarked upon some BIR recruiting efforts ….
"I saw the posters: 'Do You Know Anybody?' … Isn't that nepotism?"
And then she talked to some folks about their work, including some poor soul who does some kind of tax figuring.
"No wonder they have posters looking for new employees.?
Finally, when she asked how much time she had, the message from the room was to just roll.
"You don't exactly seem hard at it. How the fuck are you going to sell everything?"

Reason No. 482 why I love my job: Paula Poundstone stopped by!

OK, so it's been almost exactly six months since I left newspapers. It was a career that put me into proximity with famous people and provided me with free stuff. You know, in addition to all that journalistic business like comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable and all that.

Afflicting the comfortable .... as if being comfortable is a bad thing? I don't think so, if you're treating people fairly and trying to leave the world better than you found it. But I digress.

My life as an employee of an unnamed Seattle-based Big Internet Retailer (you'll never guess which one!) has also involved free stuff and celebrities. The most recent example of this came on Friday, when Paula Poundstone stopped by. (This, the day after I stopped by the "duty free zone" where unwanted promotional media items sent to the BIR await trips to shelves such as mine. Best find: the Cindy Sheehan book, which I gave to Cheryl, who reads meaningful, topical, thoughtful things while I look for things featuring superheroes or lesbian detectives.)

Paula was a hoot. Very humble, as you might expect from someone who has been publicly dragged through the mud. Yes, it was largely mud of her own making. And that probably makes it worse. It's hard to understand how someone can get drunk and drive with their kids, but it's not hard to understand how a parent can do things they regret. God knows I have, though thankfully these things have not involved cars or alcohol or paparazzi or police. They've tended to involve something like raising my voice when someone gets too distracted to pee in the potty and I have to change the fourth pair of wet pants that day. Or letting kids eat cottage cheese with milk (a favorite snack of mine and theirs) in bed. But I digress again.

Paula has a book out. I'll plug it, for all two of my readers: "There's Nothing in this Book I Meant To Say."

The best $12 haircut EVER!!!!! (aka Get Thee to the Gary Manuel Aveda Salon!!!!!)

So I walk into the salon the other week, and I am immediately filled with the usual mix of excitement and dread ... Yay, I'm getting a haircut! Shit, I'm not very cool! Damn, maybe I should have combed my hair this month!

I did not expect to feel this at the training salon, but the Gary Manuel Aveda Institute is not your typical training salon. It's JUST LIKE a schmancy joint, down to the vaguely distainful people at the front desk, and the pitcher or water next to the herbal teas that you're invited to relax with while you await your special moment.

But then, my haircutter arrived. Belle was her name, and she had a big, friendly smile. No disdain, no too cool for school-ness that can sometime accompany hipsterism. Then she said, "You're my first customer!" And I immediately knew that she didn't mean "First customer today." Though I kind of hoped it. Then I thought, fuck it, it's just hair. What's the worst that can happen?

Well, Belle did a great job. She was careful, precise, and fun to talk to. I learned about the beauty school process, which in this case involves a lot of learning the "Aveda/Gary Manuel" way. That is to say, students often already know how to cut hair. They just don't necessarily do it exactly as Gary would want. And they do things like use the word "bangs" when they should use the word "fringe." Though when Belle referred to my fringe, I thought of the surrey with it on the top. (That's a show tunes reference, kids. "Oklahoma," a classic).

Anyhoo, I'll be going back to Belle. My $12 bought me a solid haircut, a stress-relieving shoulder rub (part of the deal all the time, not just for "first customers ever") and a good story to tell.

Here's the info: Gary Manuel Aveda Institute
www.gmaveda.com
206-302-1044
1514 Tenth Ave., just off behind Broadway, between Pike and Pine.

And this is Eddie's ghost. We almost framed the paper tablecloth because we are wacky that way

A sudden uptick in artistic ability: Chas draws a gorgeous pumpkin at Cucina Cucina