July 2003 Archives

Celebrating birthdays today:

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling turns 38. Additionally, Rowling made Harry's birthday July 31st; Harry would be turning 23 this year. And Richard Griffiths, who plays Uncle Vernon Dursley in the filmed versions of the Potter books, is 56.

Dean Cain, former Superman in Lois and Clark, turns 37. Actor Michael Biehn is 47, and Barry Van Dyke--Dick Van Dyke's son--is 52.

My brother-in-law turns 40, as does singer Fatboy Slim.

And Wesley Snipes and I both will be 41 today.

Also born on this day, but now deceased: actor Ted Cassidy, best known as Lurch from The Addams Family, born in 1932; and author Primo Levi, born in 1919.

On a purely selfish, perhaps even slightly prurient basis, I was willing enough to watch Bravo's Boy Meets Boy last night, with its sixteen attractive young allegedly queer men cavorting in shorts and tank tops around a Palm Beach swimming pool. From an intellectual and (dare I say it? dare I believe it?) moralistic standpoint, though, I'm disgusted by the concept of the show--not the gay dating component, obviously, but the cruel twist unknown by the protagonist, in which some unknown number of his suitors are straight and out to win against him rather than with him. He probably should have expected some kind of dirty tricks, given this is the age of Joe Millionaire, but I still feel--at least a little--for the seemingly almost-too-innocent-to-be-believed James.

Interestingly, while I originally expected the show might make me feel bad about myself in comparison to the gym-toned, dazzling-smiled, stylishly coiffed and nattily dressed young twinks on the show, in reality I didn't find myself even wanting to be among them--much less be like them--or coming up short in comparison. OK, I know I wasn't nearly as pretty as these guys when I was in my 20s and early 30s. But I'm also certain I wasn't nearly as vapid or bubble-headed, either.

It was nice to be able to watch the show with that level of personal detachment, for a change.

Earlier today at a wide-ranging press conference at the White House--only his eighth since being handed the presidency--George W. "Fabulous" Bush said that government lawyers are looking at ways to prevent gay marriage, according to an AP report carried in The New York Times.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that.

The scariest part of this, to me, is that he thinks that his beliefs are worth enshrining in law. Of course, it doesn't surprise me; this is the same man who said to assembled world leaders during a 2001 trip to Italy, when asked to explain himself, "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right." His is an administration built on faith, not on fact.

In related and similarly disheartening news, a recent Gallup Poll suggests that the public apparently has taken a more conservative shift on gay rights just in the past two months, with the drop in support attributed to a "backlash" against the June Supreme Court decision legalizing sodomy.

For all but one segment of the population--those with post-graduate eduation, among which support for legalized homosexual relations rose a mere 2 percentage points from May to July, itself inside the poll's 3 percentage point margin of error--support dropped during this period; the overall drop was 10 percentage points from 59 percent in May to 49 percent in July, its lowest point since 1996, while for some segments of the population, the downward trend was even more dramatic. Among Blacks, for example, support for legalized homosexual relations dropped from 58 percent in May to just 35 percent in July, a decline of 23 percentage points.

Americans' acceptance of the concept that "homosexual relations between consenting adults" should be legal had--up until this month--slowly increased, from a low point of 32% recorded in 1986 to the high point of 60% this May. But two separate Gallup polls conducted this month show a dramatic reversal of this trend. A July 18-20 poll found 50% of Americans saying that homosexual relations should be legal, and a just completed July 25-27 poll confirms the substantial drop in support, with just 48% of those interviewed saying such relations should be legal. Thus, the level of support for legal homosexual relations has dropped 10-12 points in a period of just two months.

Declining support for acceptance of homosexuality appears in the responses to several other questions asked in May and again in the most recent July poll. While 54% of Americans said that "homosexuality should be considered an acceptable lifestyle" in May, only 46% say so now.

Support for allowing homosexual couples to "legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples" has fallen from 49% in May to 40% now. The current reading on this measure is the lowest out of the seven times Gallup has asked the question since October 2000.

Not only do two out of three people in this country, then, believe that I should not have the same civil privileges granted by marriage if entering into a relationship with someone I love, but one out of every two believe that it should actually be illegal for me even to be in a relationship with another man, that there should be laws against my having a consensual emotional and physical relationship with another adult male.

It is so sobering to look around today and realize that perhaps half of the people walking by me on the street, or working beside me in my office, believe that my private relationships should be criminalized.

Toronto, already a favorite city, looks better and better every day.

Last night, Jeff and I were talking on the phone and he noted that he felt like he'd OD'ed on queer reality television that evening; I agreed, saying that after watching last week's episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy repeated at 8:00, the premier of Boy Meets Boy at 9:00, and the new episode of Queer Eye at 10:00, I felt "like I need[ed] a cultural colonic." I was so pleased with my own cleverness with that remark (granted, I was in a bizarrely manic, well-pleased-with-myself mood last night anyway, though for no particular reason that I could determine) that I wrote it down in order to remember it for blogging later. And googling the phrase "cultural colonic" returns zero results, so it's mine, all mine.

Ok, so I can be a bit irrigating at times.

I have a shameful secret... I am a big crybaby. I get inexplicably teary in situations ranging from watching television commercials to reading children's books to listening to music, even when the medium isn't particularly sad or objectively affecting.

So tonight, during Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I had tears streaming down my cheek. Yes. Really.

Truly, though, this was a genuinely touching episode of a series that I fully expected to hate but find that I quite enjoy, and that shows some real bonds being forged between the gay men and their straight prot�g�s. Tonight, especially, I was on the edge of my seat, along with the Fab Five, waiting to hear the answer to the straight guy's proposal of marriage. And earlier, when he started tearing up himself when the Five showed him the garden setting for the proposal, I was moist right along with him.

Or maybe that was just because he was so hot.

Due primarily to Jeff's influence, I've seen more movies in the past couple of weeks than in the entire first half of the year. And the most recent choices, especially, really have been worthwhile.

Chicago, of course, the most well-known, speaks for itself. We saw it Sunday afternoon at the Cinema and Drafthouse just up the street, which offers a really cool--and inexpensive, at about $4 for the movie--way to see fairly recent films--on padded benches and swivel chairs at little cafe tables, over appetizers, sandwiches or pizza, along with a glass of wine, beer or cider. OK, it's a little grungier than that description makes it sound, and the food is, well, pub food quality, but the movie admission is cheap and the place can be fun.

The previous night we went to the theater at Shirlington, one of my favorites because it tends to feature foreign, arty and more esoteric films. It was there we saw Bend It Like Beckham, which included the Will Rogers Institute PSA I had discussed earlier.

Last night's film, Más Que Amor, Frenesí (from a song lyric in the film, "el sexo, más que amor, frenesí": "sex isn't love, just frenzy") certainly lived up to the last word in the title. As part of the Out@Visions! weekly exploration of gay cinema at Visions in Dupont Circle, this film was a roller coaster ride of a black comedy (a favorite genre) reminiscent of Almodovar at his craziest. And all with some terrific Latin eye-candy and a great soundtrack.

Soon, very soon, I will have the power to mold the television-watching possibilities for a nation! Mwaha-ha-ha! Straight America, fear me!

I've been randomly selected as a Nielsen household for a week starting this Thursday. I am so going to program the TiVo to load up with queer programming for the week.

But don't be surprised if in the future every network also starts carrying cartoons and an overdose of home improvement programming.

Last night, Jeff and I went to see Bend It Like Beckham (a wonderful film, by the way). The pre-film features included a PSA on behalf of the Will Rogers Institute, "a national health organization dedicated to the support of lung research and developing new treatments and cures for pulmonary diseases and disorders."

How to support the organization? Spokesperson Tommy Lee Jones, sounding like Brenda Vacarro after he dismounted from his polo pony, wheezed: "Purchase any large combo box here at the theater tonight, including a large popcorn, large soda and candy, and a percentage of the purchase price will result in a donation to the Will Rogers Institute."

In the mid-1990s, it was purported that "a large [movie] popcorn contained 80 grams of fat even without any topping. Add a few squirts of melted butter, and the fat content went up to 130 grams. That's equivalent to eight Big Macs, or your four-day saturated fat limit." [source: eye weekly; July 17, 2002]. (Note: To be fair, since the publication of that report many if not all or most theaters have switched from coconut oil to canola oil for popping popcorn, dramatically reducing the amount of saturated fat.)

Mmmm... the popcorn's not half as delicious as the irony.

Last weekend, I was talking to my sister about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and she asked me to tape it for her, since she was eager to see it but her local cable system doesn't include Bravo (or Food TV... even more reason to pity any poor gay boys growing up there, not that there aren't lots of reasons). When I got back to Arlington, I saw that NBC was planning to air it this week after Will & Grace, so I sent email to let her know, and she replied that she'd seen a promo for it as well and was planning to watch it; apparently, she's now more of a Will & Grace regular viewer than I.

Last night I got an email from her letting me know that she and my brother-in-law both had really enjoyed the program. She also wanted to know which of the Fab Five I found attractive. If the email had ended there, no problem. But she went on to tell me about her latest idea for someone she thinks I should "hook up with": Steven Cojocaru-- "Cojo" --regular contributor to NBC's Today.

This is much worse than her last suggestion for a boyfriend for me, QVC (yes, the shopping channel) host, David Venable. Now, I have to give my sister points for her burgeoning gaydar, as she clued in on Venable's passion for gourmet food, beauty pageants and musical theatre, and his dog "Ruby" (named, I had assumed, for Dorothy's ruby slippers), and big points for her understanding and comfort level with my being gay (not always the case, she was at one point probably the most homophobic member of my family)--she had seriously considered writing Mr. Venable a letter to let him know about her single gay brother and offer to make the introduction. And he is cute. But my sister seems to have a mindset that any gay man recognizable to her is, de facto, my soulmate and future husband, no matter his interests, intelligence, personal style, personality or appearance.

And it's not like she doesn't have any data points on which to make a determination: she's met all of my longish term boyfriends and even several of the hommes du jour.

Really, though. Cojo? At least with David Venable, I think my sister was working the angle that with a QVC host in the family, she'd rack up big Diamonique discounts; but what's her payoff here?

hear the clip

Transcript follows:

I just finished watching the third episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on TiVo, and just as in the second episode last week, Jai Rodriguez received the opening credit as the culture queer, yet there was a hunky black guy, identified only as Blair, actually playing that role instead. Who is he? Why was he replaced? Why does Jai get the episode credits for these two episodes? Inqueering minds want to know.

I'm guessing from this and other clues that the first episode aired, with Jai, was actually filmed after these other two. Perhaps Blair was originally the culture queer but was dumped for some reason, and they decided to air an episode with Jai first to establish his presence. But I'd still like to know what happened.

For those of you who maintain blogs, I'm curious about your practices vis a vis comments. When an entry of yours has received a comment to which you want to reply, do you do so: 1) directly to the commenter by email only, 2) directly within the comments section of the blog entry itself solely, or 3) both by email and within the blog entry's comments?

The second option would seem to allow the comments section to function as a forum of sorts, and also continue to allow others potentially to participate rather than turning the conversation into a private one, but I seem to rarely see back-and-forth communication between the blog author and the commenters in this fashion. If you do choose the second option, though, do you worry then that the original commenter might not see your reply at all?

I often use the third option, but in practice since the original commenter is much more likely to reply directly to your email rather than coming back to the comments page if they have something further to add, this ends up functioning pretty much just like the first option.

For those of you in or near the DC metro area, the DC Lambda Squares glbt square dance club is having the second of their three summer open houses tonight, an opportunity to explore lesbian and gay square dancing before new classes begin this fall.

The open house is from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Christ United Methodist Church, 4th and I Street, SW, a block from the Waterside Mall/SEU Metro station on the Green line.

From the information about the open house:

Men, women, singles, and couples are welcome. You don't need a partner, and you don't need any previous dance experience. We'll teach you everything you need to know.

Admission is free, and we'll provide refreshments in a smoke-free, alcohol-free environment. Dress is casual. You don't need to wear crinolines, unless you really want to. We recommend comfortable clothes.

If you're interested, but can't make tonight, the third and final open house of the summer will be at the same place and time on August 22. The next beginners' class starts soon thereafter, on September 9, and continues weekly until spring.

I've been writing so much about my family and my trip home, and I did say I would post some more photos, so here is a glimpse into my childhood home.

My parents' house in the woods. The portion on the right is the original three-bedroom, one-bath my parents built in 1964 when my sister was born, and where the four of us lived until I left for college and my sister was married; the middle and left portions are additions just from the past few years.

My sister's house, in the field behind my grandparents' house, which is a few hundred yards through the woods from my parents'. The house is a beautiful old building from the 1800s; standing on land in the next county that was to be flooded when a local man-made lake was complete, my grandfather bought it and he, my grandmother, my brother-in-law and my dad rebuilt it. It has a wonderful high-ceilinged great room, and a huge fireplace in the kitchen.

My aunt's house and her horse barn, a short distance up the road from my parents, grandparents and sister, and on the river near the camp where my birthday party was held.

Called the "camp," it's basically a small house on the river just up the road from where I grew up. It's jointly owned by my grandfather and a family friend; when I was a child, we spent many summer days here and, until recently, my mother's family celebrated Independence Day here each year.

My family can be so cool. Here I am, ten days away from turning 41, and my birthday present from Mom and Dad included a copy of a vinyl record of J.R.R. Tolkien reading poems from Middle Earth (purchased from a library sale when my elementary school--the same that she also had attended, and that her father had attended all the way through high school--recently was torn down in preparation for construction of a new one; I'd checked out that very album more than once back in 6th and 7th grades) and the Warriors Fortress set from the MegaBloks Dragon series (similar to the dozens of Lego castle sets I already owned).

My youngest nephew always asks me to play with him and his army and wrestling men, or on the Playstation; my family expressed amazement that he--a nine-year-old--and I were able to discuss comic books and cartoons non-stop for a couple of hours when I arrived there last Friday. He'd also been playing an old Sega Shadowrun game of mine that I'd given them years ago; when I described to him the pen-and-pencil Shadowrun RPG I used to play, he started creating character concepts and asked me to bring in the books and my dice the next time I come home. He's a cool kid.

It's amusing: when I was a teenager, I used to bemoan that my birthday and Christmas gifts were mostly practical rather than "fun," consisting almost entirely of clothing and money by then (not that I didn't appreciate either). Now that I've reached middle age, though, gifts from the family more and more include the impractical and unserious. Who knew getting older could be so much more fun?

The power just came back on after having been off for an hour and a half. No one in the building or on the block that I saw while walking around seems to know why it went out, though I've heard that there are severe almost tornado-like winds in northwest DC a few miles from here; here on the Pike, though, it's neither rainy nor particularly windy.

It's amazing how dependent we are on electricity. I couldn't fix a proper dinner, as both the range and microwave are electric; I ended up settling for hummus and pita, cheese and grapes. As the sun continued to set, I finally gave up even on trying to read by dim candlelight and just went out for a walk. The UPS did at least allow me to gracefully shut down the PC, but I'd forgotten to recharge the laptop's battery recently, so I had no computer access; in any event, the DSL modem also is AC-powered so I wouldn't have been able to get online. I could have posted via telephone and audblog. I only just now thought about that; I still haven't gotten used to that service.

Yesterday, I made my usual mistake of agreeing to attend church services with my family, an agreement that usually ends up with my blood pressure spiking from holding in my outrage at what gets said from the pulpit. This was no exception. My family sometimes describes me as "selfish" and "free from guilt" in the sense that they believe that I live my life in a way that ignores their desires for how I should live and behave in favor of my own happiness; leaving aside for now the issue of whether there's even anything wrong with that, they don't realize the ways in which activities that seem commonplace and trivial to them--like attending a southern Methodist church service because they want me there--might feel to me like a compromise of my own integrity and even my sense of comfort and well-being (given that past ministers there have railed against homosexuality, for example), and therefore probably not acts of selfishness.

The church's usual minister is away for the month, pursuing some additional theological education, so yesterday's speaker was a lay leader--a contemporary of mine whom I knew well in my youth as we grew up together in that church and in that community. He's a nice guy, sincere and compassionate, but the topic of both the children's discussion and general sermon were about the lack of God, overt Christianity and prayer in public education: "Isn't it ironic that we are educated from preschool to college in order to find a good job [already a premise I reject, at least as a sole justification for acquiring education] so that we can pursue the evil of money, on which we find 'In God We Trust,' but just a few people have made them take God out of our schools? Since just a few people got God removed from school, maybe just a few of us can get Him back in."

Every time he said "just a few people made them take God out of our schools"--and he said it many times--it was all I could do not to shout out "Yeah, like the authors of the Bill of Rights." I wanted to point out that "In God We Trust" was not an original motto of our nation and hadn't been printed on our currency before the 1950s, just as "under God" hadn't previously been part of the Pledge of Allegiance. And I was curious as to whether his belief that religion should be put back in the classroom would extend to encouraging daily prayers to Shiva or Diana, or if the assumption of Christianity was, as I suspect, so fundamental (if you'll pardon the pun) to his argument as to be unquestionable. More humorously, I wanted to suggest that despite the alleged absence of God from school, I probably heard more prayers being offered up during final exams than anywhere else in my life.

But I kept my mouth shut, sat on my hands, and tried to tune out the service as much as possible, for the sake of my parents' feelings--I was there for them, after all, and clearly not for my own spiritual or intellectual edification--and the implicit inappropriateness of speaking back in church. And it turns out that my family all thought it was a great sermon, so I guess it was just as well that I--no longer a member of that church, nor indeed of that community--didn't rock the boat. I'd already used up most of the family's tolerance for political discussion with my comments throughout the weekend about the war, the economy and the environment.

Friday's edition of The Washington Post carried a great, very positive article in the Style section about DC Lambda Squares, the gay squaredance club with which I used to dance regularly. The first few paragraphs of the article are included below:

The gay square dancers are group-hugging again.

This time, it's to the last notes of a honky-tonkified version of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac" blaring on the borrowed stereo system, and they're sweaty and happy and filled to the brim with Chips Ahoys and diet soda. But the truth is, they've been hugging all night, and when the music stops in the blue-green basement rec room, they go on hugging and clapping and promenading in the silence.

Which makes you think this is about therapy or unity or something more profound than the shared love of square dancing.

But it's not.

It really is just about the love of square dancing.

They come to Christ United Methodist Church in Southwest Washington every Wednesday night, and usually the crowd is much bigger than this one, they say. Having finally broken out of formation, the dozen or so middle-age men and women are sitting in kid-size plastic chairs arranged for tomorrow's Bible study and talking about square dance steps. And square dance picnics. And last weekend's International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs convention in San Diego.

These are the DC Lambda Squares, by their account the world's oldest gay square dance club, and this is a rare moment of youth and vigor for a centuries-old pastime feeling the strains of age. Over the past 20 years, straight square dancing has been in steady decline, and the new square dance--the Lambda Squares dance--was born in Washington and has been growing up gay.

That last paragraph does include an obvious mistake: I don't believe that DC Lambda Squares is self-described as the "world's oldest gay squaredance clubs," though it's certainly one of the oldest; what the club members may have told the reporter, rather, is that it's the only squaredance club of any kind, gay or straight, within the District (just as the Times Squares, a sister gay squaredance club, is the only squaredance club within Manhattan).

The article does a very nice job, however, of describing some of the differences between squaredancing in the straight community--where the number of dancers is steadily dropping as the population ages and they do a poor job of attracting new dancers--and in the gay and lesbian community, where the activity seems to be at least holding its own. One explanation, as my friend Karl Jaeckel from the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs is quoted: "For the gay square dance community, in addition to just enjoying square dancing, we come together to celebrate who we are as a community," Jaeckel says. "That aspect isn't present for the straight square dancers."

Having noted earlier that "[Squaredancing] is not hip. It is the opposite of hip. It is anti-hip," the article concludes, "'See, it's not easy being a square dancer,' [Lambda Squares co-founder Samuel] Johnson says. And it's not. But it's novel. It's goofy and homey, uncomplicated, awkward and surprisingly jumpy for its age and reputation. It's a favorite tin lunchbox, a new pair of gym shoes, something happy and frilly and fun to do on a Wednesday afternoon."

It is. And it's also a great way to meet really wonderful, truly friendly people from around the world (I even met several boyfriends through the activity). What the article omits, especially as it specifically says squaredancing is an "uncomplicated" activity, is the mental challenge that squaredancing provides at the higher levels of the activity, when you've learned not only several hundred calls, but dozens of additional formations and call-modifying "concepts." At the highest levels of Challenge squaredancing (squaredancing starts at the Basic and Mainstream levels, then proceeds through Plus, two levels of Advanced, and four levels of Challenge), the activity is less a physical or even purely social one, but more of an intellectual one; in fact, many of the other Challenge-level dancers I know come from a mathematics or computer background.

Now, don't I feel chagrinned? Here I was talking about my family and the weirdness about today's cookout, and then it turned out to be a surprise belated (by 353 days) 40th birthday party; apparently my mom had wanted to throw me a 40th birthday party last year, but with my dad hospitalized in Richmond that month, she and I celebrated alone with dinner near the hospital.

When I arrived at the camp, my dad was blowing up black balloons, which I then ended up hanging from the black crepe paper already strung from the ceiling (I've got pictures on the digital camera, but no easy way to upload them to my dad's computer or edit them, so I'll append them once I'm back home); Mom was paying me back for the same theme my sister and I used for her own 40th birthday. They had hoped I'd not come over until the rest of the family already were there, but I had thought when they left earlier that the subtext was that they wanted me to come over sooner; so much for clear nonverbal communication.

It was a great day, and I was truly surprised; I don't usually mark birthdays or holidays, so I didn't expect this at all, particularly just about two weeks' shy of my 41st birthday. We had lots of cookout food, some of my sister's great homemade desserts, and cake. The kids went fishing, and the rest of us engaged in my family's signature n! conversations, where n is the number of people present at a given gathering, and where the winning argument or opinion that holds sway is likely to be merely the one that is loudest or otherwise commands the most attention. My sister said at one point that she wishes we were Greek, having seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or Italian: I noted that I didn't really see any difference between our English/Irish/Scot/Welsh/German/Dutch/French melange and the stereotypes of large Mediterranean families.

But given the couple dozen other voices talking at the same time, I'm not sure she heard me.

As I alluded in the previous entry, I'm visiting my folks this weekend in smalltown Appalachia. I love my family, and I enjoy spending time with them, but I've already been involved in one unwise political discussion with my sister (hint: she doesn't allow anyone to listen to the Dixie Chicks in her presence); just missed seeing my mom's cousin, up from Georgia with her 17-year-old son and the 14-year-old girl he just got pregnant; and am about to head over to the "Camp" on the river where my mom for some reason is planning a family cookout--for the whole family, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.--this weekend (my sister, noting that we'll be eating "fatted calf," suggests that my presence here is reason for the cookout, though the truth is that the whole family gets together at least once weekly, though not usually with this kind of fanfare or preparation). I'll provide any gory details, and possibly some pictures, later this weekend or upon my return.

Besides the liberal mindset of my friends, and food that doesn't include grease as a primary ingredient, what I most miss this weekend is broadband. My folks can't get DSL where they live, and they're only able to average about 28.8kpbs on their AOL dial-up.

(To be fair, some of the extended family are Democrats and dislike/mistrust Bush almost as much as I, and they're all--Democrats and Republicans alike--extremely accepting of my homosexuality. So it's not precisely Deliverance, though impromptu bluegrass or gospel singing at family cookouts has not been unheard of.)

Yesterday, while getting ready for my trip home to visit my family for a long weekend, I heard a feature on NPR about the 1963 original prototype for G.I. Joe being auctioned, with an expectation that he might fetch as much as $600,000. Later news articles report that bids for the 40-year-old didn't even reach the $250,000 reserve price, so poor Joe remains alone. I know just how he feels.

I was also reminded of the G.I. Joe I'd owned as a kid, and his own identity crisis. Already a burgeoning liberal--and with my gay genes clearly already activated--I had decided that Joe was a pacifist, and I removed all his military drag and threw it away. I then took some of my sister's Ken doll's pants, cutting them down into short shorts--for which I later blamed our younger cousin--that the shirtless Joe adopted as his ubiquitous costume.

The AWOL Joe and his new buddy Ken also spent many hours tooling around our basement in Barbie's dream car, which the apparently bi-curious Ken borrowed without permission--along with some Bob Mackie gowns--from his anorexic girlfriend.

Monday evening Rebel Cutie and I went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at DC's annual "Screen on the Green." I even got to break in my picnic backpack as we broke out some hummus, couscous, cheese, fruit and my signature curried tuna salad.

When we first met up on the steps of the National Gallery just past 6:30, the Mall didn't seem too crowded, but a steady stream of arrivals by nightfall saw blankets covering nearly every square inch of grass at least as far back as 7th Street, and a fair amount of dusty footpath as well.

After our picnic supper, while waiting for dusk to fall and the film to begin, we pulled out some mail-order furniture catalogs and oohed and aahed over gorgeous wood and leather furnishings, like the fabulous queer boys we are.

The movie outside--on what turned out to be a pleasantly cool and clear summer evening, with a beautiful near-full moon rising over the edge of the Mall--was a wonderful experience. It was only very slightly marred by the mildly tipsy group two blankets behind us who decided to talk back to the screen, chat on their cellphones, and debate with others around them their right to be as obnoxious as they wished. Over the course of the film, they did quiet down to the point that it became easier to ignore them and focus on the film.

I hadn't been to Screen on the Green in several years, and I'm really glad that Jeff suggested it, giving me the opportunity to enjoy a classic film with him--and several thousand of my fellow Metro DC residents. Next week, The Postman Always Rings Twice.

From an online article entitled "Gray hair and age":

The first onset of gray hair and the speed at which people go gray varies considerably from person to person. Most people actually start going gray in their late 20s but they don't notice it immediately. Premature graying is defined as gray hair onset before late teens for Caucasians and before age 30 in Africans and Asians, or alternatively 50% or more gray scalp hair before age 50. Very occasionally, a few gray hairs can develop in children as young as 8 years and yet it indicates nothing other than an early onset of the gray hair that we all develop with increasing age. Typical gray hair first develops at age 34.2 +/- 9.6 years in Caucasians while for Black people the average age of onset is 43.9 +/-10.3 years (Keogh 1965). As a rough guide, 50% of the population in the US and Europe have 50% gray hair by age 50.

The most common areas on the scalp in which to first see gray hair development are above the ears and/or at the temples. This first gray hair may spread around the sides and to the crown with time. Gray hair development in the beard and mustache may also start quite early, while gray hair on the chest and pubic region generally only occurs some years after onset of gray hair on the scalp.

I just found my first gray chest hair.

I don't know why this disturbs and distresses me in a way that the gray at my temples and liberally salting my goatee has not.

But it does.

Saturday at lunch at R.T.'s in Alexandria, Peg and I ran into my friend David, a fellow squaredancer, friend of Dorothy and resident of my condo building, having lunch there with a friend of his down from Philadelphia. David asked about my Saab, having seen my friend's SUV in my parking space and my car parked on the street the past few weeks. I explained the problems I'd been having, and his friend volunteered that he'd recently bought a used Saab and it already was in the garage with problems. I noted that I was planning to replace it, and I mentioned first the Mini, which got the more usual very positive reaction, and then the Prius, about which he also was very excited. So there was no clear vote from David one way or the other.

On the way home, Peg and I stopped by the BMW dealer on Jefferson Davis Highway, and there was a Mini parked there. We got out and looked at it again, and she still thinks it's ugly. I still love the look and styling, but more and more the lack of trunk space bothers me, and I'm also realizing that the appeal of the Mini for me is very much just stylistic; buying a Mini would be like dating a cool and very good-looking but somewhat vapid and high-maintenance indie rock musician, probably sleeping with your friends behind your back. The Prius, on the other hand, strikes me as a geeky, pro-choice Berkeley grad and Naderite, dependable, smart and attentive, and cool and attractive in a more personal offbeat way, despite or perhaps even because of his funky clothes and hairstyle.

Twenty years ago, I dated that musician; these days, I'd take the Berkeley grad hands down. So the Prius is looking more and more like the smarter--or at least more adult--choice, and I'm feeling more and more solidly in the Prius camp. We did swing by the Toyota dealer just next to the BMW lot immediately after; the outside sales staff rushed us when we stepped out of the SUV, but when I told them I was looking for information on the 2004 Prius, they all shrugged their shoulders and passed me off to the receptionist. The staff inside only took my name and email address and said they'd let me know, probably in September, when they had more information about the new Prius.

The remaining drawback to the Prius is that I'm having less success in coming up with a witty personalized plate. The only thing that the name evokes is Priapus, and anything in that vein would be swiftly denied by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

So, currently the tally (expressed or assumed on my part) is:

1. Jeff: Mini (because he, carless, wants to be chauffeured in it)
2. Nicole: Mini
3. Waldo (colleague): Mini (because he wants a sporty car, but with a wife and kid now he feels he has to go the more practical route, and will drive vicariously through me)

1. Gene: Prius (because Mac users are always evangelizing something)
2. Katie (boss): Prius (because she wants one of her own, given that Virginia law currently allows single-passenger hybrid cars to be treated as the equivalent of HOV for the purpose of using HOV lanes during rush hour, and that she has more than an hour-and-a-half commute otherwise)
3. Peg: Prius (she's involved with recycling and waste management professionally, and very green personally)
4. Randy: Prius (another Prius evangelist: check out his Prius blog)

They're practically neck in neck. Anyone else care to add a vote as to which new car Thom should buy?

It's been a very full weekend. After a Cajun lunch on Saturday of alligator stew, she-crab soup, and crawfish and shrimp beignets, Peg and I drove out through Fauquier County to the Skyline Drive, entering at Thornton Gap and then driving the 30-some miles north to the Front Royal entrance, stopping along the way at various overlooks but braving the clouds of bugs for only a short hike. I took a few pictures, and was particularly pleased with the closeup of the thistle. We saw a turkey sitting on an overlook wall and later, while on our brief walk, came across a doe and her two spotted fawns; I had my camera in my bag at that point, and got it out in time only to catch the two fawns just disappearing into the woods.

From Front Royal we drove back to Arlington for dinner at Aladdin's Eatery, and then headed home to watch The Manchurian Candidate on DVD; I'd not seen this Cold War classic before. Angela Lansbury, a favorite anyway, made a deliciously evil villain. I don't understand why Janet Leigh got a starring credit while Ms. Lansbury was listed only as co-starring; the latter's role seemed both larger and more pivotal.

After a late start this morning, we enjoyed a wonderful dim sum at Fortune Restaurant at Seven Corners, and then took the train downtown to see the Korean War Memorial. Afterwards, we walked the Mall (way too many cute shirtless men out today; I have got a bad case of spring fever), stopped by the fountain in the sculpture garden across the street from the National Gallery to rest a spell and dip our hands, and then spent an hour with the impressionists of the National Gallery before making our way back to Arlington for margaritas and Tex-Mex, and then home to watch the end of The Manchurian Candidate and all of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which Peg hadn't yet seen.

Now Peg's in bed, and I'm preparing to go to sleep myself. I'll head into work in the morning, but come back home to pick her up and drive her back to Union Station for her 11:00 train back to New Haven before returning to work for the rest of the day. It's been wonderful, albeit exhausting, to have her here.

And now I've also got the past three days of unwatched TiVo recordings to try to catch up on before heading down to see my folks this coming Friday (assuming my boss will let me take the day off; she's waffling a little depending on whether the spate of office moves ends up really taking place this week); and tonight (Monday night) already is scheduled for taking in Screen on the Green with Jeff. I need a studly husband cum fellow couch potato so I can have someone to cuddle up with--besides Alex, furry and sweet though he may be--while vegging out with all this TiVo bounty.

Peg and I went back to Aladdin's Eatery for dinner last night--Walid was there, but wasn't serving our section--and I realized that what I'd taken for potential flirtation on his part at lunch on Thursday was likely nothing more than a cultural artifact. Our waiter last night was nearly as attentive, minus the shoulder touching, largely ignoring Peg in favor of me as he took our order, asked if things were well, and left the check. It wasn't until he was bringing her credit card slip back that he apparently realized that she, the woman at the table, had paid for the meal, at which point he finally did smile at her and wish her a pleasant evening; Peg was betting up until that moment that he would bring the receipt back to me instead.

So, it probably was the same cultural chauvinism that had Walid ignoring my two female colleagues at the table at lunch the other day in favor of me, rather than his having fallen madly in love with me in the face of my charm and good looks.

My friend Peg arrived today from Connecticut to spend the weekend with me. Having met through squaredancing, Peg and I used to see each other at squaredance events several times a year, back when I was still actively dancing. Now that I've largely given up the activity, and especially since I've been unable to attend convention the past two years, I only saw her once in 2001, once in 2002, and now once this year.

She took the train down, and I left work early to pick her up at Union Station at 2:30. We decided we would go to the Friday night contra dance at Glen Echo Park, so we had an early dinner of tapas in Shirlington, came back and changed clothes, and then headed out to Maryland for the dance.

Historically, the weekly contra dances (along with the weekly waltzes, swing and other dance evenings) were held in the Spanish Ballroom; as it is currently being renovated, however, the dances have been held for more than a year in the outdoor bumper car pavilion. The Ballroom is preferred, though it's largely just an emotional preference as the Ballroom is neither air-conditioned or heated, which makes summer dances in the Ballroom miserably hot while winter dances start out painfully cold, though by the time you've danced a couple of sets you've warmed up enough to start stripping off layers of clothing.

Tonight was simultaneously fun and torturous. My body is particularly bad at regulating its temperature; my normal body temperature stays about two degrees below the norm of 98.6°F, and I tend to get overheated very quickly and easily, even when being very careful to keep myself hydrated. I very rarely sweat at all. Tonight, though, I became soaking wet and miserable, and was feeling almost dizzy and sick; I think the moisture was less my own sweat, though, then just condensation from the high humidity in the air as well as the couple hundred other bodies in the relatively small--albeit outside--space.

This really frustrates me. I love contra dancing, but I'm only able to do maybe every other or even every third set at summer dances because of the overheating; this same sensitivity to heat used to be very embarrassing on summer bicycle trips, when I would almost invariably be the first to end up retching from overexertion. I know I'm not in the best shape I could be, but I'm certain I'm in no worse shape than the majority of those who come to dance, a fair percentage of whom are half again my age and/or body weight, yet they seem to be able to dance set after set--and contra dances are long and very physically engaging--in the heat and humidity without being affected as badly. In airconditioning, I'm able to dance for hours on end without needing to stop; in college I won a dance marathon, and when I was most enthusiastic about squaredancing even as recently as five years ago would dance ten or more hours a day at convention, and then two-step and waltz for a couple more hours at night. Even now, though, two hours after coming home from the dance, and showering, I still feel flushed and overly warm.

Anyway, I'm not sure why this ended up being a diatribe against outside or uncooled indoor summer activities; I really intended just to write about how nice it is to have Peg here for the weekend, and to note that my posting may be light again this weekend while I'm entertaining a houseguest.

Tomorrow we're going to look at MINI Coopers. Peg already thinks it's an ugly car, though, and she's the first of my friends to push the Prius over the MINI, the rest wanting me to get the "funky" car, so they can have a ride in it. I am starting to think that the Prius by far makes the most sense, though, and the 2004 model due out in October even looks a little sexier in addition to being technologically more advanced, even more fuel-efficient and with lower emissions than the current Prius model. Yes, I must confess that a part of me gets off on the "coolness" quotient of a car, though I'm probably more attracted in the end to quirkiness or cool technology rather than just another pretty face, which is why I was a Saturn and Saab owner; Saturns and Saabs, in their ways and in their time, defined quirky and unique. So maybe I'll just try to be one of the first on my block to have the new, eminently quirky, techy and exceedingly green--if not altogether hip--2004 Toyota Prius. I just hope my Saab's engine holds out until then.

One of my colleagues was back in the office today after two weeks away (during which she successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, with distinction), and our boss offered to treat the two of us to lunch, to talk about some upcoming changes in the office as we prepare to welcome two more people the end of the month.

We went to a wonderful Lebanese-American restaurant in Shirlington--Aladdin's Eatery--which I'd never really noticed before, despite frequent meals at other Shirlington eateries in the same pedestrian mall. My entree was a charbroiled tuna salad in a pita, which I expected to be only a half a pita, which I would have found reasonable for its price of $5-6. What they brought out was a whole pita nearly as big as my head, filled with greens and practically a dinner-sized portion of tuna (admittedly, the tuna was a little on the overdone and dry side, but the meal was fine even before you take into account how reasonably priced it was). I eventually ended up bringing more than half of it back with me, to take home for dinner.

Our server was a very cute young man of Middle Eastern appearance, named Walid, who seemed very attentive to me, even personally guiding me over to the dessert tray to check out their incredible range of cheesecakes when he could easily have just pointed it out fifteen feet away and in direct line of sight. Throughout the meal, I assumed all of this attention was just the mark of a good server who was hoping for a solid tip. Even after my boss picked up the check, though, Walid continued to be particularly attentive to me, even resting his hand briefly on my shoulder as he brought back my wrapped salad, and then looking directly at me as he said "I hope to see you back again soon" (damn English and its gender- and number-neutral second person pronouns!). As we left, I turned back and caught his eye as he was watching us leave, and we both smiled broadly. My assumption with waitstaff usually is not that that kind of attention means I'm being cruised--I tend to be pretty dense about whether or not someone is cruising me even in less ambiguous circumstances--but that they're just diligent about providing good service, but in this case I'm not so sure. And I definitely do want to go back.

Cute funny guy Stephen Lynch is returning to the Birchmere the end of September.

And the terrific Irish band Gaelic Storm (the Titanic steerage band) will be performing there just four days earlier. You just gotta love a band whose featured sales item on their web site is not a t-shirt but a hip flask:

Gaelic Storm is proud to present these classy personal flasks. The band does NOT recommend that you buy these and fill them with several ounces of your favorite fine whiskey (We do NOT suggest either Bushmills or MacCallan 12 year old). Gaelic Storm also recommends NOT tucking them discreetly in a hip pocket or purse and NOT bringing them to our concerts. We strongly suggest NOT sipping from them frequently during the show and NOT passing them around for the enjoyment of your friends. We especially insist that you DON'T pass them up on stage to share thirsty band members. Really. Don't. Don't ever. Honest.

I guess I know what I'll be doing at least two nights in September. And what I'll be drinking.

For today's "So there!" moment, however, the Pew Internet Project has released a report on "Gaming technology and entertainment among college students" that concludes that computer, video and online games "are more of a social/socializing activity [for college students] than most suspected," rather than an isolating "geeky" behavior. Some key findings included:

• All of those surveyed reported to have played a video, computer or online game at one time or another. Seventy percent (70%) of college students reported playing video, computer or online games at least once in a while. Some 65% of college students reported being regular or occasional game players.
• Students cited gaming as a way to spend more time with friends. One out of every five (20%) gaming students felt moderately or strongly that gaming helped them make new friends as well as improve existing friendships.
• Gaming also appears to play a surrogate role for some gamers when friends are unavailable. Nearly two-thirds (60%) of students surveyed agreed that gaming, either moderately or strongly, helped them spend time when friends were not available.
• Two-thirds of respondents (65%) said gaming has little to no influence in taking away time they might spend with friends and family.
• Students integrate gaming into their day, taking time between classes to play a game, play a game while visiting with friends or instant messaging, or play games as a brief distraction from writing papers or doing other work.
• Gaming is integrated into leisure time and placed alongside other entertainment forms in their residence, and that it forms part of a larger multitasking setting in which college students play games, listen to music and interact with others in the room.
• Most college student gamers seem to associate positive feelings with gaming, such as "pleasant" (36%), "exciting" (34%), and "challenging" (45%). Fewer students reported feeling frustrated (12%), bored (11%), or stressed (6%) by gaming.
• Close to half (48%) of college student gamers agreed that gaming keeps them from studying "some" or "a lot." In addition, about one in ten (9%) admitted that their main motivation for playing games was to avoid studying.
• College student gamers' reported hours studying per week match up closely with those reported by college students in general, with about two-thirds (62%) reporting that they study for classes no more than 7 hours per week, and 15% reported studying 12 or more hours per week.
• One third (32%) of students surveyed admitted playing games that were not part of the instructional activities during classes.

So, I'm not necessarily an antisocial loser-geek. Well, at least not just because I play computer and online games.

In today's "well, duh!" moment, Britney Spears admitted that despite her repeated claims over the years that she would wait until marriage to have sex, she actually lost her virginity several years ago to ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake.

In a related story, though it's the American people who were screwed this time, the Bush administration also acknowledged "that President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program."

Last night, Jeff and I were sharing some laughs over a reprint of a February 1950 Popular Mechanics article about predictions of suburban life in the year 2000 (thanks to Arts & Literature Daily for the pointer to the article). [Note: the reprint is part of a larger, fascinating MIT site dedicated to the "home of the future."]

The article starts off pleasantly and unsurprisingly enough, describing the imaginary suburb of 2000, Tottenville, as "clean as a whistle and quiet. It is a crime to burn raw coal and pollute air with smoke and soot." Descriptions of the relative merits and uses of electrical, atomic and solar power are informative and fairly non-controversial. Where the article starts to become silly, by today's standards, is in its expectations that function and ease of use completely would overrule issues of style and good taste:

When Jane Dobson cleans house she simply turns the hose on everything. Why not? Furniture (upholstery included), rugs, draperies, unscratchable floors--all are made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor (later concealed by a rug of synthetic fiber) Jane turns on a blast of hot air and dries everything. A detergent in the water dissolves any resistant dirt. Tablecloths and napkins are made of woven paper yarn so fine that the untutored eye mistakes it for linen. Jane Dobson throws soiled "linen" in the incinerator. Bed sheets are of more substantial stuff, but Jane Dobson has only to hang them up and wash them down with a hose when she puts the bedroom in order....

Some of the food that Jane Dobson buys is what we miscall "synthetic." ...By 2000, a vast amount of research has be[en] conducted to exploit principles that were embryonic in the first quarter of the 20th century. Thus sawdust and wood pulp are converted into sugary foods. Discarded paper table "linen" and rayon underwear are bought by chemical factories to be converted into candy.

While candy made out of discarded rayon underwear is perhaps unappealing and a little frightening, the truly alarming predictions were from the area of weather forecasting and control:

[S]torms are more or less under control. It is easy enough to spot a budding hurricane in the doldrums off the coast of Africa. Before it has a chance to gather much strength and speed as it travels westward toward Florida, oil is spread over the sea and ignited [emphasis mine]. There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, which includes the developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void. The rising air condenses so that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.

With storms diverted where they do no harm, aerial travel is never interrupted.

Thank goodness. I'd hate to think that we couldn't put all this fossil fuel to good use by deliberately releasing and igniting it in the ocean.

After discussing the requisite personal helicopter stored on the roof, and the eradication of aging, influenza and the common cold, the article takes a final disturbing turn in a way that shows the influences of the Cold War and McCarthyism, and suggests that this little suburb of Tottenville is just up the road from Stepford:

Any marked departure from what Joe Dobson and his fellow citizens wear and eat and how they amuse themselves will arouse comment. If old Mrs. Underwood, who lives around the corner from the Dobsons and who was born in 1920 insists on sleeping under an old-fashioned comforter instead of an aerogel blanket of glass puffed with air so that it is as light as thistledown she must expect people to talk about her "queerness." It is astonishing how easily the great majority of us fall into step with our neighbors. And after all, is the standardization of life to be deplored if we can have a house like Joe Dobson's, a standardized helicopter, luxurious standardized household appointments, and food that was out of the reach of any Roman emperor?

There's old lady Underwood now... let's get her! Baseball bats, probably now made of recycled feminine hygiene products, are amazingly light yet still pack a wallop.

I left Yorktown around 2:30 yesterday afternoon, and got back home after 6:30, another depressingly overlong drive that took almost twice the time it normally would on a non-holiday weekend.

It was a relaxing, low-pressure weekend in which, as Sheldon pointed out in his LiveJournal entry, the three of us quickly and easily, though not unsurprisingly, fell right back into our comfortable ways of being with each other, even after nine years of having lived far apart. It would be very nice if we could end up living together again, or at least in the same city; some of my fondest memories are from the years we lived together in the early 90s.

On Saturday we did make it to lunch at one of the nicer restaurants to which Sheldon had wanted to take me--The Trellis, in Williamsburg, the home of Marcel Desaulniers and his famous "Death by Chocolate." I had a wonderful mushroom pâté served with walnut bread, and the three of us shared a nice dessert that included a chocolate-hazelnut-raspberry cake and scoops of chocoate-toasted coconut ice cream and blueberry sorbet.

The weather, though sunny, was just much too hot and humid to make being outside enjoyable or even particularly bearable, so we didn't do much out of the house; after lunch on Saturday we did briefly walk around some of the shops near the restaurant, and made a visit to two wine tastings, including one at the shop from which Sheldon stocks much of his own cellar. Otherwise, we just stayed in, reminisced, caught up, watched television and drank some very, very good wine. We didn't even observe any fireworks, or attend any cookouts, but I didn't regret either.

And now I'm back home. Alex was very glad to see me, and was very affectionate and needy all evening; unfortunately, he also decided to be very needy at 5:00 this morning, wandering around the house and crying until I got out of bed and played with him. Considering I hadn't gotten to bed until after 2:00, I'm feeling rather wonky today. Fortunately, it seems to be a pretty quiet day at the office.

Thursday evening after a meeting at church that ended around 8pm, I braved the holiday traffic to drive down to Yorktown to spend the long weekend with my friends Sheldon and Lisa, now living back in Virginia after nine years away in Belgium and Anchorage. It took four hours to make what should have been just over a two-hour trip; in the stressful first two and a half hours I only got about seventy miles from home, though after that the traffic lightened considerably and the rest of the drive wasn't too bad.

Yesterday we took in Terminator 3 to avoid the depressingly muggy heat, had a couple of meals (unfortunately, the nice restaurants we'd hoped to visit were closed for the fourth, so we just hit a Ruby Tuesdays for lunch and an Uno's for dinner), and relaxed in front of the tv with two very nice bottles of wine.

This morning I'm catching up on email and making at least this one entry to explain why I'm not otherwise posting much this weekend, the first of three weekends in a row where I actually have fairly significant plans. This weekend I'm with Sheldon and Lisa, next weekend my friend Peg comes to stay with me, and the weekend after that I'm finally driving down to visit my family for the first time in months; I'd have spent this weekend with my folks, except that the entire family (not just Mom and Dad, but sister, brother-in-law and nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins) was leaving early this morning for their annual vacation at Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina.

After I post this, I think we're going to head out to brunch; today we're trying again to get to the nicer and/or more interesting restaurants. Afterwards, I think we're going to spend some time in Williamsburg. I'll report more later.

It's been a very strange morning here at the office. By 10:00 I'd already been involved in two personal conversations--including one with my boss--about homosexuality.

My closet having been blown wide open when I started coming out in 1980 to my friends and family, the final splinters from the closet door were swept away in 1992 when I finally officially came out to my parents. I've always been out in the workplace, too, even spearheading efforts to add sexual orientation to my previous employers' antidiscrimination policies, to gain domestic partner benefits, and to organize company- and industry-wide queer employee groups.

So the past eleven months at the Department of State have been oddly and somewhat distressingly--albeit inadvertently--like going back into a closet of sorts. I've been told that State may be the most progressive federal agency on glbt issues, yet I feel a greater sense of disapprobation here for those who are openly gay and less self-disclosure from other queer employees than anywhere else I've worked; it's been almost completely a non-issue in all of my other employment over the past 19 years. Granted, staff here seem less likely to engage in any kind of personal sharing or making personal connections than anywhere I've worked before. With a few notable exceptions, mostly among the contract staff, I've noticed very little socialization among employees.

So, back to the issue at hand. One of the contractors I oversee is lesbian, and she and I do tend to share more personal information with one another; she's also probably the most visibly out person here at the Institute, often talking about her partner or mentioning that she is gay within minutes of meeting someone else, sometimes in ways that seem even to me more gratuitious than relevant. In this regard, too, I've noticed that other staff tend to talk disparagingly about this aspect of her communication, and they focus on what they describe as "wearing her sexuality on her sleeve." More accurately, though, I think that she's just more informal and less careful about her conversation more generally; she often blurts out things about a wide range of issues and people without thinking of the context or the level of appropriateness, not just about her or others' sexual orientation, though that's what many of my straight colleagues seem to focus on. I, on the other hand, have been less forthcoming about my personal life since coming to work here, not because I've made a deliberate decision to withhold information, but primarily just because I really haven't had much of a personal life to share during the time I've been employed here. I've been single and haven't even dated much, and largely have been wrapped up in a variety of concerns--my dad's health, problems with my condo and my car, etc.--that haven't left much time or energy for a social life. At the same time, I haven't become particularly close to anyone here, with the exception of one colleague, so my sexual orientation has remained largely unspoken and uncommented upon.

Yesterday, though, in a meeting with the contractor and my immediate supervisor, the latter made a complimentary comment about the support I've been giving her in organizing and managing some projects, and the contractor quipped, "Well, we knew we needed a gay man for the job." Though I suspected my supervisor knew that I'm gay, we'd never personally spoken about it. There was a short awkward pause in the conversation, but then we went back to the topic and moved on. I was amused more than anything else, and after the meeting was over didn't even think about it again.

My boss, though, apparently was disturbed by it, and she came to me today to tell me that she planned to speak to the contractor about it, and that it had potentially created a "hostile work environment" that could set the stage for a complaint, by me, of sexual harrassment. While I agreed in theory that the comment had been potentially inappropriate, and it was a little frustrating to hear that the contractor, without first asking or telling me, had outed me to my supervisor months ago when my supervisor first returned to the job after a year's sabbatical, I suggested that she take the approach not of focusing specifically on the comment about my being gay, which in and of itself I found neither offensive nor threatening, but about the contractor's tendency more generally to speak without thinking or being aware of the environment and context for her remarks.

This led to a conversation about where people draw the lines of their own comfort level, and I pointed out that while my boss defines the contractor's references to her partner as "giving too much detail about her personal life," she herself has shared a great level of detail about her own marriage, divorce and new relationship with her opposite-sex partner, to whom she's not married. All in all, it was a positive conversation; sometimes I'm amazed at the comfortable relationship I have with my boss, and our ability to be completely blunt and honest with each other, given that before she came back I'd heard comments about her previous behavior that left me feeling anxious about working with her.

After this conversation, one of my other contract staff came to speak to me, and she wanted to share some personal health-related issues that were having a bearing on her emotional state and, by extension, on her work performance. In the context of recognizing that she and I are developing a personal relationship as well as a professional one, and her burgeoning friendship with the lesbian contractor as well, I ended up outing myself again, as a natural part of the conversation. She already had guessed as much, but told me that she assumed that I was closeted here, which was a strange and discomforting thing to hear. But it opened another door to developing some social relationships here, and we've already begun to make plans to start having lunch together more often.

So while at eleven months into the job it's taken significantly longer than usual to reach a comfort level I've usually taken for granted, at least it does look like I may finally be finding some additional personal connections here that may help make the workday a little more engaging.

While watching last night's episode of Family Guy just now (thanks to TiVo), I was pleasantly surprised to see a Chili's commercial featuring Esera Tuaolo, the former NFL athlete currently focusing on a musical career, who came out publicly as gay last year. It wasn't long ago that athletes who were gay--or even presumed gay--were seen as liabilities, and were very unlikely to receive commercial endorsement contracts. And in Chili's we have, like Wal-Mart, an institution that historically has been seen as appealing to the American middle-class mainstream demonstrating--explicitly in Wal-Mart's case and at least implicitly in Chili's--a wider acceptance of the gay community.

What a wonderfully queer week this has been.

While having my hair shampooed and styled yesterday, and writing about it today, some of my favorite memories of my parents and my paternal grandmother came to mind.

As a young boy, I would sit next to my grandmother in the pew every Sunday at church services, while my mother and father were up front with the choir, my mother as organist and my father singing. During the sermon, my grandmother would scratch my head, often lulling me to sleep.

Similarly, on Sunday mornings before church, my sister and I often would climb onto Mom and Dad's bed, where the four of us would read our Sunday School lessons, while Mom would scratch Dad's back or mine. My sister never really liked this kind of physical contact; even with her own husband and to a lesser degree with her children she's not very physically demonstrative.

And I remembered many times sitting on the floor with my back against the sofa on which my dad would be lying, with him watching tv or resting, but with one hand outstretched to quietly and unconcernedly scratch my head. This style of physical communication and affection from my father continues even now; when I'm visiting my parents, it's not at all unusual for me to sit on the floor at the foot of their bed, while Dad lies on the bed with his feet toward the headboard, idly scratching my scalp while we watch a DVD together. I realize sometimes how lucky I am--especially given the generations to which my dad and I belong--to have a father who's not afraid to express affection and love to his son.

Having my head scratched or massaged by a partner continues to be a wonderful treat for me, more a sensuous indulgence from my remembrances of experiencing it with my family than entirely a sexual pleasure (though on the latter front, I do rather like having my hair tugged, though at its current length that would be more difficult, since there's little with which to find a handhold); it tends to put me into a quiet, comfortable, dreamy mood, where I feel safe and loved. Considering how much I enjoy this, it's a wonder I don't have my hair styled much more often than only every 2-4 months.

Yesterday evening I had an appointment for a haircut. I had been a bad boy and hadn't seen my stylist since February 28, so my hair had grown longer than anyone in my current job had seen on me, though still relatively short, and certainly not nearly as long as during my high school days. (As a data point, the picture in the left-hand column was taken two months after the last haircut, and two months prior to this one.)

My hair is naturally wavy, but the wave is not as readily apparent--nor as unmanageable--when my hair is kept very short, which is one reason I tend to do so. Over the past four months since the last trim, though, and especially with the high humidity we've been enduring this spring and summer, the curl was becoming more noticeable, and two colleagues, including my boss, had commented that they particularly liked it longer and wavier. For at least the past three weeks, though, it had been driving me crazy, and with the weather getting warmer I was ready for a summer do. I had been trying to make an appointment for about a month, but my stylist was away part of that time attending his grandfather's funeral in Ireland, and then booked upon his return for two solid weeks. I was even startin--and feeling guilty about--an internal debate whether I should go to someone else in the meantime, but the couple of external compliments helped me decide to wait until John was back; after all, while I hated seeing my more unruly hair briefly in the mirror as I was preparing for work in the morning, I wasn't the one who had to look at it throughout the rest of the day.

I told John I wanted to go "short, short, summer short" and he took it a little further even than we'd gone before; the back and sides especially are about as close to a buzz cut without actually being one as one can go. When he first started, his clippers kept getting clogged up, and he said it felt like shearing a sheep. And shampooing this morning felt so odd with practically nothing to run my hands through as I lathered, rinsed and repeated.

Reactions today seem to be polarized; I've gotten several very positive comments, but at least two--including one from my boss--bemoaning the loss of my curls, and one colleague nearly shrieked when she turned the corner and saw me, saying as she walked off that I "look like a marine," not precisely the look I was going for, though I don't think it's quite that severe, but probably just hyperbole on her part.

Of course, now that I'm shorn for the hot humid DC summer, today's high temperature is only in the mid 70s as opposed to the low 90s we'd been seeing; moreover, the air conditioning at work seems to be running much cooler than usual, so today my head is freezing. Oh, the price we pay to try to look fresh and smart.

As if the religious right weren't apoplectic enough after last week's Supreme Court decision legalizing private consensual sodomy, I can't wait to see their reaction to the announcement that that bastion of rural couture and puritanism, Wal-Mart, announced yesterday that it has added sexual orientation to its corporate antidiscrimination policy.

With this formal change to Wal-Mart's policy, nine of the ten largest Fortune 500 companies now bar discrimination against gay and lesbian employees; the tenth, Exxon Mobil Corporation, revoked the nondiscrimination policy and domestic partner benefits already in place at Mobil when the latter was acquired by Exxon in 1999.

For some unknown reason--and I'm definitely not complaining--the campus here at work seems particularly overrun today by hot young men. There's never really a shortage of cute guys here--the new foreign service officer classes generally seem to include a good percentage--but today it was like an explosion of beefcake, a few of whom even turned out for their classes in shorts, the only thing that makes DC summers bearable. The two new contractors who joined my web team today are very attractive; one is particularly pleasant eye candy, with an intense and striking gaze. In the cafeteria today at noon, I nearly got whiplash from the presence of nice-looking men all around me. Finally, on the way across the quad from the cafeteria back to my office, I even was cruised by a very attractive blond twenty-something.

This latter actually came at a particularly welcome moment; just a short while earlier, I'd received a Nerve email newsletter that included this gayboi's personal ad, in reaction to which I was feeling like a toad. But then I turned someone's head today, too, and all is now right with the world.