doubting thom

To those who say that their support for Bush because of his war on terror trumps their opposition to amending the Constitution, Andrew Sullivan puts it best:

THE PRESIDENT’S CONTRADICTION: So you can see, perhaps, why the bid to write anti-gay discrimination into this very Constitution provokes such a strong response from me – and so many other people, gay and straight, and their families. It robs us of something no one in this country should be robbed of – equality and inclusion in the founding document itself. When people tell me that, in weighing the political choices, the war on terror should trump the sanctity of the Constitution, my response is therefore a simple one. The sanctity of the Constitution is what we are fighting for. We’re not fighting just to defend ourselves. We are fighting to defend a way of life: pluralism, freedom, equality under the law. You cannot defend the Constitution abroad while undermining it at home. It’s a contradiction. And it’s a deeply divisive contradiction in a time of great peril.

From People for the American Way.

Our Constitution begins with the words “we the people,” and we are those people charged with defending its ideals and principles. So are your family, friends and neighbors. Please ask them to sign the petition today while news of Bush’s announcement spreads.

Send others this link with a personal note urging them to sign the petition:
http://www.pfaw.org/go/save_our_constitution

With sincere appreciation for all your efforts,
People For the American Way

I hardly know how to describe how I feel today; since my lunch break from the training class today, when I came back to my desk to discover those big bold top-of-the-page headlines on The Washington Post and The New York Times noting that Bush is calling for codifying discrimination against an entire class of American citizens in perhaps our most fundamental document of national identity, the one that otherwise provides for our civil liberties, I’ve been shaking. I feel just as though I’d been slapped in the face, punched in the stomach or spit on. I’m angry, I’m saddened, I’m embittered. I’m sick and I’m tired. I expected this announcement, though, so why am I having such a visceral reaction?

I might be able to muster some respect for those who call for a constitutional amendment “defending the sanctity of marriage” and “concern for the welfare of our children” if it were accompanied by a clear consistent message on those fronts; if it outlawed divorce, say, or prohibited marriage to the infertile, closed down quickie wedding chapels in Nevada, or mandated extreme penalties for heterosexual adultery and infidelity. But this message and those who carry its banner are–purely and simply–hateful, shameful, ignorant and obscenely misanthropic and, yes, the real anti-Americans, religious fundamentalists at least as dangerous to this country in their own way as any religious extremist. I’m sickened to my very core about the theocratic undertones to this administration and its actions.

Once our place as second-class citizens of this country is enshrined in the Constitution–hell, our place as Constitutionally mandated sub-humans, given that Bush would have us denied access to (as historically wrong as his claim may be, though that’s never stopped him before) “the most enduring human institution”–then, I ask you, who’s next? The Patriot Act, a Constitutional amendment… folks, the frogs are in the pot, and the water’s starting to warm up.

[The other] Jeff posted a link to an incredible, powerful letter, published in a Vermont newspaper during that state’s rancorous debate on homosexuality and civil unions, by a mother of a gay son. Read it. I intend to send a copy of this letter to all of my friends, to all of my family. I intend to work my hardest to defeat this proposed amendment, and to get Bush out of the White House this fall.

I used to believe that those of my friends and family who supported Bush did so with the best of motives and intentions, and that we could still love and support one another regardless. And at the time, that was true. No more. This is a matter of my life, my liberty and my personal pursuit of happiness. I have learned the language of the other side: either my family and my friends are with me on this, or they are against me. There can be no more middle ground where this religious zealot in the White House is in question. As far as I’m concerned, a vote for Bush in 2004 from anyone I know and love quite simply is a statement of ignorance, hatred and scorn, and I will no longer need that person in my life.

One does not have to support gay marriage to understand that amending our Constitution is unequivocally the wrong way to express that point-of-view, and that our country’s leader should have much higher priorities right now than fomenting, endorsing and enshrining hatred in a document as precious to our liberty and national identity as the U.S. Constitution.

I was about to write about the obscenely preposterous statements of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (geez, even just writing that sequence of four words makes me shiver) suggesting that issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco will lead to licensing drugs and assault weapons, and spark riots and death. However, Jeff already has done such a wonderful job of it, so read his post.

After seeing Robot Stories mentioned a few places online recently, including Matt’s post about having seen it the day after [my] Jeff and I met him and [his] Jeff for brunch, I decided to look it up online. Jeff and I then decided to try to see it during its one-week appearance in the DC area, at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring.

The films were uneven, with the one written specifically for the anthology (he noted that one day he just realized that he had these three stories he’d written, all of which dealt in one way or another with robots)–“Machine Love”–in my opinion the weakest, though a plus was that it did feature the cute filmmaker himself. Parts two and four, I think, were the strongest, though the first about a couple taking care of a robot baby for a month while being monitored for their suitability to adopt a real baby had its moments, both poignant and funny.

Grek Pak, the filmmaker and writer, has been traveling around promoting the film–really, an anthology of four short films–and he was at the AFI Silver Friday and Saturday nights, staying to answer questions after the screening.

One interesting observation Jeff and I both had was the placelessness of the stories. Only one was set in a clearly identified place, from the maps of upstate New York one character consulted. It turns out that the films were shot in and around Manhattan, but all of them could have been set in any city with a sizable Asian-American population–San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Tokyo. The rich diversity of the cast and crew also was notable, as was the enthusiasm of the filmmaker; he passed around notepads for people to leave their email addresses if they were interested in getting more info about the film and his other work. Before I went to bed Saturday night, I’d already received an email, and Pak also already had posted about the night’s show in the film’s blog.

Robot Stories is playing here in DC for only another four nights (through the 26th), unless it gets extended as it did in New York.

Though I still haven’t settled on a name for the new baby, she came home with us last night, as we also said a sad goodbye to her six-year-old brother who went up for adoption in her place. And she’s gorgeous, everyone says–it’s not just a father’s blind pride. She was still so new to the world when they brought her out to us last night, a week premature and with a scant two miles on her odometer, a healthy 175-inch, 2,890-pound Prius, redolent with that unmistakable new car smell.

It was dark by the time we completed the paperwork at the dealership last night, so I wasn’t able to take any photos at the time, but I’m planning to shoot some today or over the weekend. I’m really looking forward to having some nice weather to get out and just drive, and explore the ins and outs of this car.

There’s a learning curve to a Prius, especially fully loaded with the Smart Start and Entry (unlock and power on the car without pulling the key out of your pocket or purse) system; the joystick-like gear shift; the voice-activated audio, climate, information and navigation controls; the DVD voice navigation system; the eerie silence when the engine cuts off completely at stop signs and traffic lights; the continuously updating MPG display as you make subtle adjustments to your driving patterns; etc. I really have to make a conscious effort to keep my eyes on the road instead of on the wealth of information available on the screen.

I’m very excited, almost giddy–Jeff was pretty patient with my incessant chatter about the car, my staying up until 1am reading the owner’s manuals while he went on to bed an hour earlier, but I kept feeling that he was thinking “enough already.” <grin /> He had that look of almost pained forebearance–or maybe that was just his stomachache from our late dinner of Tex-Mex.

At the risk of calling Punxsutawney Phil a prevaricator or at least an exaggerator, there are signs here in DC that the six more weeks of winter predicted on February 2 are not to come to pass. Yesterday the temperature reached an almost-balmy 60 degrees, the skies were clear and the sun continued to shine after I left work, and today promises to be similar (if perhaps turning a little cloudy later in the day) with the weekend temperatures also predicted to be in the high 50s.

It seems to be the topic of discussion among everyone I know here, from just between Jeff and me last night and this morning, to among all of my co-workers this morning and several local blogs I’ve skimmed. We’re all very ready for spring.

Last night I had a dream about the new car (I’m due to pick up my new Prius in just 3-1/2 hours). In the dream, the car was full of significant flaws: the most memorable being that the top of the windshield was four inches below my eyes, and even then the top several inches of the windshield were darkly tinted so I had to slouch or lean sideways to see out the front of the car; and the gearshift and emergency brakes were on huge columns (three-feet long and six-inches in diameter) growing up out of the floor just to the right of the brake, so I had to accelerate and brake with my left foot while folding my right leg under me.

Once I finally got the hang of driving the car, it appeared that we were on the mountain road half a mile from my mom’s house, except that the side of the mountain was now a jungle, with the ruins of a Buddhist monastery peeping through. I drove on a small, broken dirt road to the monastery to find a group of 20- to 30-somethings who were in the process of restoring it in order to turn it into a commune. Jeff and I were thinking about moving there, but the other folk were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to get in and out, since the road we had taken off the highway likely would vanish or be closed during the winter snows, telling me that they came in and out directly up the mountain using all-terrain vehicles rather than via the road we had taken.

That’s all I recall.

When I got home last night, there were two messages on my answering machine from my Toyota dealer; of course, my first thought when I saw the number on the caller ID was that he was calling to give me bad news (ever the pessimist), but the truth was quite different. My Prius already is here, more than a week earlier than expected (ok, so it’s a couple of months later than originally expected, but it’s early based on the latest real information). It’s being serviced today, and I’m picking it up Thursday after work!

Despite having Internet access at the hotel, and thinking I might post while there, between our various Manhattan activities and resting up between them I just didn’t end up doing so. Of course, that also meant I came home to dozens of spam emails and thousands (!) of unread blog entries from the blogs I regularly read via Bloglines. I’m still not caught up on the latter.

This is about the weekend, though. And it simply was amazing. The worst part of the weekend was the trip home last night: with reservations for the 6:00 bus, we arrived at the Port Authority terminal just before 5:30, so we were told we could go ahead and take one that was just then scheduled to leave. We went ahead and put our luggage in the cargo hold before discovering that the only two remaining seats were at opposite ends of the bus, so we weren’t able to sit together. But that’s really the worst thing I can say about the weekend, though, by far.

Also frustrating, though much less significantly, was that the museums all seemed to be between exhibits: the Cooper-Hewitt only had a single room open, but still were charging the full entry fee, so we bypassed the exhibit for its gift shop. We then hit the Guggenheim, where the top two floors were closed, but we paid the half-price admission to see parts of the permanent collection as well as a wonderful exhibition of works by Kandinsky and Klee, which turn out to be shared favorites of ours. Additionally, there was a range of Picassos demonstrating his versatility (both in the permanent collection and in an exhibit focusing on Umberto Boccioni) as well as Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), a particular favorite of mine that Jeff hadn’t seen at all and for which I’d never seen the original.

Friday night we went to the Rufus Wainwright concert, where we had incredible seats three rows from the stage. Unfortunately, a speaker on the stage edge blocked my view of everything from the neck down when Rufus was seated at the piano; fortunately, he also did a few numbers standing up, on guitar, where my view of him was clear. As wonderful as I found his concert last fall in Washington, this one was better; he was in better voice and the overall energy seemed higher. Teddy and Martha were missing this time around, and I missed their backing vocals (though Martha did come out to do a duet with Rufus as one of his encores), but the last-minute addition of the wickedly funny drag cabaret act of Kiki and Herb as a second opening act–and a Rufus-Kiki duet during the show–was a FABulous laugh-til-I-cried surprise.

Saturday afternoon we saw Wicked, a Broadway musical that seems to be getting lukewarm reports from the critics but an enthusiastic reception from the audience. Jeff and I had been listening to the soundtrack for several weeks, which we’ve both quite liked, but even so I wasn’t prepared for just how much I was going to enjoy the show. This show was the entertainment highlight of my weekend, and I really want to go see it again; our tickets were in the next-to-last row of the orchestra, and I’d like to sit closer since there’s so much going on in terms of facial expressions and body language, especially in Kristin Chenowith’s inspired Glinda the Good.

Sunday morning we had brunch with the bloggers–themselves a newly dating couple–behind Tin Man and Hit or Miss. You really can’t imagine a cuter pair, or better suited for one another. They’re really adorable, I definitely enjoyed meeting them and chatting with them over brunch, and I also loved their recommendation of the sweet potato fries at the homsetyle restaurant where we met, the Chat ‘n’ Chew (by the way, Matt, their web site does list a new location at 470 6th Avenue, so I wasn’t imagining things after all).

Sunday evening we had terrific seats for Avenue Q, another wonderful, fun new musical on Broadway. John Tartaglia (who I just discovered is a blogger): Jeff and I both are in love with you, or at least something approximate. You were fantastic!

Yesterday we did a little shopping, hitting the bluefly.com warehouse “everything for $25” sale (though it would have been a drag queen’s wet dream, with some incredible dresses, there was woefully little in men’s wear, and nothing in my size) and the Barney’s warehouse sale, where Jeff did luck out on a couple of cashmere sweaters and a beautiful embroidered shirt.

Beyond that, we did a fair amount of walking the neighborhoods, primarily Chelsea and the Village, and hit a few art galleries on Saturday evening. Otherwise, we made frequent and very good use of our penthouse hotel room, nudge, nudge, wink, wink… demonstrating the truth of a Jay Mohr standup routine we’d recently seen on Comedy Central in which he noted that there’s something about arriving at–and paying large sums of money for–a hotel room that just makes you want to have lots of sex.

An exhausting but really wonderfully fun-filled weekend. I had such a great time in Manhattan with Jeff, and I’m also continually rediscovering that I’m so much in love, and so lucky to be loved in return by someone so wonderful. I know it’s perhaps a little sickening but, hey, I’m way past due for this, so indulge me.