OK, so I'm 28 and my partner is 48.  We're heading to CA for a family vacation (my family) in two weeks and yesterday we get a call from my parents last night.  The usual small talk is made, everyone's excited about the trip, too much time is spent discussing the weather, and then the requests start.  Just two.  One, no swearing.  Fine, mannimal didn't like how upset my mom got when we all started saying FUCK repeatedly two years ago just so that she would start crying and run out of the room (trust me, it was fucking hillarious).  He was, in fact, the only person who took her side.  We'd all seen it before and knew she was just tired and cranky and wanted her way and he was convinced we were all horrible people and she was some wounded baby seal that we were clubbing into submission with FUCK!  They're rationale (as they always seem to have) was because of the new baby.  She's turning 1 this year and my parents are deathly afraid that my brother's sailor's mouth (which we both inherited from our father who swore like a catholic nun with a crucifix in her vag) will cause her first word to be FUCK.  I think it would be fucking hillarious, but they're old and republican and have to keep up this air of "what would the neighbors think" like all God fearing protestants.  It is the suburbs, after all.

Second request: no speedos.  Mannimal and I are on the bed together and I didn't have my sensor on so I just repeated it and looked over with a roll of my eyes and a nod in the affirmative.  This stems from two sources.  Two years ago, one of mannimal's thong man panties was found in the boat as we were getting out one day.  He'd changed on board.  No biggie, we all do it.  It was just that they all thought the skimpy undies were my sister-in-law's.  The other was my tangerine speedo.  OK, it's not even a thong, it's one of those gay square cut briefs that is tight and hugs the butt, but fuck it, I'm gay and I like my tan line high.  That was my act of rebellion the year before when we went as a family to Cancun.  Someone had to tell the midwest they were wrong and it was going to be my skimpy swimwear.

Fine.  No problem.  I wasn't really planning an all-out assault on decency this summer anyway.  I don't waterski in the damn things, they'd fall off.  I do like to lay out in them, though.  Just one less thing to do when you're laying out.  I fucking hate bunching up my board shorts when I lay out, it makes me look like I dropped a big poop in my diapers and like I said, I'm gay and I don't care.  Mannimal's got a few speedo's and they, well, exaggerate his package.  In fact, when we first started dating I showed my brother and sister-in-law the pics of him from his online profile, one of which was him in his red speedo and her first response was, "wow, big package."  So sue us, we're gay and we have penises.  I hate that in my family the women can wear bikinis with wild abandon but the men cannot wear anything but acceptable hetero-wear.

So mannimal freaks out and wants to call off the trip.  Like I said before, he's 48 and he feels that he's "too old to have someone telling him how to behave."  Basically he's channeling all his heterophobia and suburaphobia into the request made by my dad (usually it's my mom who fucks up with these things, but he's the more modest one so it really didn't surprise me).  Needless to say the rest of the night was fun.  Lots of fighting, me defending their stupid request as not being that big of a deal, him accusing me of avoiding an issue, me saying I'll choose which battles to fight, thank you very much.

Yeah, that was fun.  In response, I'm bringing my square cut shorts for tanning and they can suck it if they say anything about it.  The boat will be board shorts only, but the deck is for tanning and I'm gay and if they like seeing me on these vacations they'll just have to deal with it.  Sorry, but my tanline is more sacred than their country bumpkin values.  We're two big homos and we're not going anywhere so you better get used to it.  The funny thing is, I didn't even have a problem with it, but now that they made it an issue I'm totally going to force it and make them uncomfortable.  They get too used to being gay-free with me across the country.  Gotta keep their minds open to the fact that everyone is different and tolerance is a two way street, you don't have to like it, but you do have to tolerate it, that's love and that's family.

Thanks monkeybush.  Because when you're approval ratings are in the shitter it's all of a sudden fair game (and about time) to pick on the lowliest of the low, the monogohomos.  Shunned by their own species and apparently by Jesus, the monogohomos just want the right to spend $25,000 on a party that says, "we're willing to sacrifice the uniqueness of our relationship to conform to a definition of commitment established by straight people as a means of property exchange."  Because when you have loving Christians such as Anita Bryant telling you something you told yourself enough times to cause suicide in far too many of you growing up, you need a sneering political puppet to start up the "let's hate fags for ratings" party again.

I should be over getting angry at the mor(m)ons of our country.  I should just stifle back a giggle when I see them walking in blind obedience to the factory of love that tells them, "you've got permission to carry out the judgment handed down by our definition of the invisible man in the sky," but I just can't.  I was watching CNN last night (if you ever need rationale for the need of The Daily Show, watch CNN at 1am on a Saturday), and after a thre minute expose about how white women can escape abduction in parking lots (as explained by a black man to a rather butch looking white lady of spalded hair and indeterminate middle age), it was on to more important things like whale sex.  Yes, I'm not even kidding.  The 1am line up was:

• Palestinian Militants Making Crude Missles have Worse Aim than their Guided American/Israeli Show-Off Counterparts
• Black Man Accused of Murder is on the Run (with picture)
• Probably White Man with Risin in a Baby Food Jar (not shown) not Terrorist, Just Crazy
• White Women Shopping in Atlanta Should Run Like Hell and Fight Back like J-Lo when Vans Park Too Close

and finally, on their way to commercial:

• Illiterate Viewer Call-In's About Gay Marriage, Can you Hate Fags and Still Separate Church from State?

After we were fed a steady diet of car commercials about how better your life would be if only you had a new car with poorer emission standards and worse gas mileage than something from the early 90's thanks to Republicans repealing environmental standards it was on to Shark Sex.  Yes, before "call in and speak like an idiot time for being pro-hate," it was "Let's Get it On" in the background while a chipper demi-asian announcerhead told us about something sexy in a large box... brought to you by UPS.  Apparently FedEx can only bring us hot man-on-volleyball love, it takes Brown to bring us a box of steaming hot shark chicks on the back of a truck to spark something called love in some big-ass aquarium.

I was giggling during everything but the dial-a-hate session (which I'll get to) because it was so pathetic that this is what CNN has sunk to.  I was almost tempted to turn to Fox News.  Why the rant?  Because the expose of a Palestinian missile silo (which their reporter was taken to by hooded militants) was so racist.  The objectivity of news was simply not there, it was all about how these dark people with no country of their own risk their lives to make missiles that don't care about who they hit.  It wasn't explicitly said, but you could infer that the magical weapons we use when causing collateral damage in our quest for peace are somehow better at claiming only the lives of people who deserve it. 

Then with the face of an escaped black man it was a not-so-subtle racist blip showing us the evils of being black and how all black men not in sports or on UPN are escaped murderers if you see them on TV (unless they're milling about in the background of a white sitcom.  I was totally expecting to see a crude unibomber drawing (another anti-gay thing, did you ever notice how fucking gay the unibomber looked? he was like some sunglass wearing jogger with a Village People mustache) when they switched to the story about the retard with some guns and a babyfood jar of Risin, but all they showed was his shabby shack.  You could tell by the tire swing, the location (somewhere southern and poor) and the car on cinder blocks that this was the love shack of some crazy white guy.... but no picture was given.

I'm not saying any more about the dykie middle aged soccer mom who spent 5 minutes taking to the large black man about how to get away when you're abducted from a shopping mall parking lot.  Lesson learned, women should never leave home without their husbands.

So then it's "call in and sound stupid" time to keep us from flipping as they enter commercialand.  Tonight's lunch time poll: "should the US define marriage in the Fucking Constitution as being between a man and a woman"  I can't even begin to get properly angry.  That they managed to have an equal number of callers on pro and con pissed me off the most.  Not CNN, but that there are at least 4 people who feel that marriage was intended to be defined by our founding fathers in the Constitution but was conveniently left out because they didn't feel like they needed to say something so undeniably true to all Christians (who are apparently who the country was founded by and for).  The other callers weren't sentimental or schamltzy they were fed up.  "Hell no the federal government should not amend the constitution," was my favorite.  I kept listening for a discernable lisp in the men or a deep voice in the women (come on, you know you do too), but their editors had crafted the piece too well.

Leave the gays alone!  If you can't manage tolerance, ignore us.  We're not asking you to tell us how much you like us because, "you're not like other gays, you're cool."  We're not asking the straights to start dressing themselves or planning their own weddings or catering their own parties, we're just saying, "hey, we're here, we're queer, we're not going anywhere, could you pass the salt?"  Yes I think salt is an appropriate correlation to marriage.  They both preserve meat and are forms of payment and cause open wounds to really really sting.  Geez, do I have to essplain everything.

Rant concluded.  Go about your bidness.

School is out for the summer and I am on the job hunting rampage.  OK, it's less of a rampage and more of a gentle wandering through the possible what-if's of employment for this, my first summer back to school.

In case you were wondering, Ms Free found me, fancy that.  This summer's family waterski trip will be reminiscent of many throughout childhood only now we're both married.  Here's hoping our husbands like each other and everyone gets along (not that I'm doubting it, just saying is all).

Just to catch up on the end of the semester, I passed everything.  I got a C in physics which is what I was expecting, but still, it would have been nice to have some kind of bizzare cuve in effect like what happened with math last semester.  I'm really over being a grade grubber, but getting a C still feels like wearing someone else's dirty underwear.  Sure it does the job, but it doesn't feel right and it's kind of itchy.  The rest of the grades haven't been posted but I'm certain I got an A in bone head English (duh, like I really needed to take that course, but fine academia, I'll play your game and get it over with).  Another A is expected in NYC arch history.  The TA likes me and I knew all the answers so that's pretty much assumed.

The big happy A will come from my studio class.  I'm sure it's an A because my final project was nominated by my professor as the top project in our class which meant it was up for best 1st year project.  If I had known there was a contest I so would have tried even harder.  Not that I didn't work my ass off on the project, but there were so many avenues I could have explored, so many obcessions I could have followed.  In any event, I'm happy with how it all turned out.  Even though I didn't win the prize, I did manage the honor of having my stuff taken and stored in the archives.  The building itself feels like Hogwarts so the archives are kind of like the owlry (yes, I'm finally reading all the Harry Potter books which I got mannimal for his birthday).  There's a lot of pictures, sorry about that, but it shows the insanity of making these things as well as the finished product. 

So yeah, school's done, I'm in desperate need of work (hit me up if you've got suggestions, please!) and other than that just trying to get some enjoyment out of summer after getting hit with a rather annoying cold right when finals hit.

Oh, one final anecdote.  So we're cleaning out the studio after finals and I got into the bust up your hard work scene that was amassing outside my studio.  While my final project made it into the school attic, my wooden vagina did not.  After we amused ourselves by whacking someone else's 1000 sticks on a hill (yeah, not kidding, same 6'x2' hill, but with 1000 sticks... something about rain) with a rather hefty broom, all that was left was his hill which could support a small SUV.  We took turns sliding down it and tossing filing cabinets on it and so I chucked the wooden vagina at it.  The thing popped.  Like into 200 pieces.  It was the most satisfying thing I think I've ever done.  One minute this really really really complicated intricate study of receptivity, the next, big bang.  Very cathartic.

Not sure if anyone's still reading this, but there's more to come.  I'm in mid-studio right now so I use that as my excuse to not blog (that and I haven't really had that much to say).

What's going on for studio, you ask?  The marble dust was for a model of my model at 1/16" = 1' to show the effects of water erosion on the volume of earth we were given for our latest project.  We're designing a weather station, it's got the logic of gravity and orientation, thank god, but is still pretty conceptual.  I spent 4 days taking my findings with the mini-model and cut out strips of cardboard to fill my 1/4 scale model with cardboard (how's that for crazy).  Now I have to take part of the model and make a model of it, at 1" = 1'.

Let's review:
mini-model: 18"x6"
full model: 6'x2'
mega-model: probably like 3'x3'

Now that's a lot of lumber.  Good wholesome fun, though.  More to come.

So it's spring break but it doesn't feel like it.  Why?  Because every one of my teachers has assigned way too much homework.  This is fine, I'll get it done, but seriously.  It's a break, as in, give me one.

Let's start today.  Mannimal's anti-snoring mouthpiece has been on the fritz and so he's roaring too loud for my earplugs to do any good.  I spend the morning on the couch.  It's comfy.  I go back to bed cranky, not because of sleeping on the couch (Because it's big and comfy), but because I have to go to studio today, on my break, and spritz marble dust down the model of my model (don't ask, it's really that rediculous).  Worse than that I've decided that this morning is all about me moping and sleeping away the day and complaining.  Not sure why, but sometimes it happens.

Here's where we stand now.  It's 1pm, I have a dinerburger on its way (which is one of the truely great delivery items on this planet of NYC) and I'm seeing if smoking pot will produce the effects of getting stoned.  It's an experiment, no really.  So mannimal already told me to fuck off on studio which I needed the confirmation thereof to do and so I'm all about getting out in 75degree sunshine and rollerblading stoned, and full of dinerburger... with cheese.

Even though yesterday I was uber productive, making it down to Pearl for marble dust (don't ask), up to B&N for a required book on nature and the metropolis for more ruminations on my current project (hillslide of terror) and then out to lunch with Shiv (rock!) and then to the museum of NYC with mannimal as an alternative to our blade/bike combo afternoon which it was too cold to do yesterday (it was the wind, really, and the late afternoon lame weather).  So yesterday was good, today I was just so not jazzed about doing studio, and that was before I recognized how amazing the weather was going to be.

This is why students congregate together.  My grown up mind wants me to be productive and keep working on my project which I don't hate, I just need some time off from.  My not grown up mind wants to be wrong and lazy and irresponsible.  I can totally justify a rollerblade and sunshine as being good for me, way more gooder than say, wasting away in a lightless hole spritzing water on a tiny hillside to see how much it slides and where so I can determine the placement of my buildings and their appropriate funciton and connection to each other.  Yeah, I'm talking archifun.

OK, food's here and I'm now feeling that my experiment was correct.  And fuck it, I have almost 2 weeks to make my bs happen.

   I was checking my email and I got a friendster bulk mail alerting me of birthday notifications.  I hadn't been there in a while so I decided to have a look around.  Seeing friends I haven't seen in years, seeing friends of friends I haven't seen in much longer, it was a little strange.  I got my evite (what a sign of the times, all electronic) for my 10 year high school reunion this October a few weeks ago, so I guess nostalgia's been on the brain, albeit on a back burner. 

I'll probably take some time in the next week to bring things up to speed.  Spring Break is finally almost upon us.  As I spent my last weekend for almost two weeks couped up in studio I only managed to make it through knowing that soon I'd be a free man again.  I'm still enjoying school, don't get me wrong, but having one class take up all your daylight and most of your evenings can be a little much.

Back to nostalgia, ah, remember when...  So I'm reading testimonials of friends and this story I remember hearing from high school cliqued in my head.  I didn't recognize who'd sent it because he'd changed so much since I knew him in high school, but it made sense in that way that people at a party talking about people you know does.  Um, not sure where I wanted to go with that, maybe I'll write more on it later...

That's right, I'm officially 28.  I'm approaching 30 like never before and loving it.  Maybe it's because one of the people in studio made me show him my ID because he didn't believe me (he thought I was 19).  Maybe it's because I get birthday schnow (I love schnow).  Maybe it's because I don't have to go to work.  Maybe it's because my toothpick castle is due today and we finished it last night at 7:30.  Check it out.

whee!

ok terd, lemme comment.  I'm not cool enough to be a part of your blogosphere, but damn it, why must blogspot think they're the ipod of blogging?  can't we just agree that mp3 is for you and for me and let all players play the same fucking songs.  Um, yeah, and I just want to say, I'm glad you're blogging again.  It makes me piddle.

now dance, rummy.