A Single Man: it's like MadMen for Gays

A Single Man is very unfortunately titled in that it's much too close to the Coens' A Serious Man, and people can only keep so many indie-titles in their head simultaneously. (It was ridiculous that Resevation Road came out within a year of  Revolutionary Road -- and consequently, my mother won't watch either when they come on HBO, because she thinks she has seen them both, when in fact, she has seen neither.)

While the movie is very TomFord and I am not a TomFord fan, it is still a heartbreaker -- like MadMen, for Gays (give Sal a whole movie). 

It's the kind of film that everyone ought to see on MLK day. I try to never take any freedoms for granted, but I am occasionally guilty. I don't want to get married, for example, and never have, but as a token straight, I know I could (presuming a prospective spouse could be secured, and held down long enough to get the Preacher). My Food Gays have been together TWENTY SIX YEARS, on the other hand, and while we all think of them as married, legally, they are not. My Junior Gays are just kids really, and they haven't been together very long, but if they want to grow up and get married, by God, I want to throw their Wedding. And why can't my Gay Husband marry my Gay Husband-in-Law so that I can be their Best Bitch, or Bitch of Honor? Anyone looking for a stimulus package? Meet the GayZillas.

That should not be up for a vote. As my friend Ian points out, if we put interracial marriage on a ballot today, it would not pass in this state. I suspect suffrage wouldn't get very far either.

I never blog politically here, but what the hell kinda Faerie Princess and Designated Straight Wife would I be if I didn't bring this up and make people as uncomfortable as I possibly can, as often as I possibly can?

At the Table

[this post reads 8:22 pm EST; it was actually posted at 11:22. Intern will have to figure out setting the blog clock -- but this way gives me more time to meet my midnight deadlines, per my NaBloPoMo repeat/challenge: 30 posts in 30 days.]

-----11:22 pm EST------
I know it's rude to blog at the table -- but we might not get home by Midnight.

On my way here, I walked past a conversation that included this, "Dude: we should start a website -- Masturbatin' and Cryin'."

I paused, and they immediately quietened down, waiting for me to pass. I just leaned and asked "domain name?"(Because that is a site I would go to.)

-------
 1:15 am
It seems like a slide show of the evening would be better than a blog. But I don't know how to post a slideshow, so I can post a few pics instead.

For example, these are the boots I wore. They're very painful, but they are excruciatingly cute too, and I had to step up my game not because of the Hot Guys any number of us might've encountered --- but because Tha Gays came out with us tonight, and in their spare time, they judge people. Junior Gays Jupe and Buñuel were along, but so were the Senior/Food/Power Gays and if I ever embarrassed them with a Twitterista/Fashionista Faux Pax they would disown me on the spot.

There were so many of us it was hard for us to initially integrate the straights and gays and we had a brief unfortunate flashback to "separate but equal" but it was all resolved when Bluebelle took custody of the Junior Gays and I took the Food Gays and we were eventually able to effect a merger.

[This is Bluebelle's Drrrrty Martini, which brought harmony, happiness and peace.]
 
Between all the dirty bloggers, the Front Porchers, the gays, junior gays, and food gays, etc. who had shown up, we quickly outgrew the place and headed to the second destination farther downtown.  It was on the walk there that I passed a conversation that included this, "Dude: we should start a website -- Masturbatin' and Cryin'." I paused only to ask "domain name?"

Our second destination gave us a fabulous balcony window seat which just about has to be the coolest table in town (if not for the fact that heat rises -- making it about 300 degrees in there; I first  thought reading all that Oprah People Magazine had maybe sent me into perimenopause.) This is Jupe's drink.

Over the course of the evening I learned a few more porn bookmark recommendations for the BlackBerry (shout out to the Junior Gays for JerkYourTube -- sorry mates, no links; don't want to get ranked as an over-18 blog), untold gossip (seriously: it will remain untold); and I think we all reached the more or less  mutual simultaneous conclusion that "hot mess" has jumped the shark. (Though closer inspection on the way out revealed she probably was just an unattractive girl, and not in fact, a tranny.)

Surprisingly, I came home with the most monstrous swag bags ever. Chef Tom and MichaelJansenMiller brought me a summer's worth of labor in a bag (including Moroccan Preserved Lemons!! There woulda been no pesto at Ace's house this year had those two not stepped in with basil rescue plants after the Great Crop Failure of 2009) and then frontporch friend Jan brought me HOMEMADE MEATBALLS -- after discussing her recipe at book club the other night, I didn't think I could pull it off. I tend to scorch meatballs, and then give up and just make meat-sauce instead (Check it out, she even put a little sprig of fresh flat-leaf parsley on top!)

As the baby of the group, we conferred over dinner and decided Bunuel has so much culinary promise that he probably should apprentice with the Food Gays to see if that's where his calling is leading him (he knows he can't declare his specialization as a Gay until he turns 25... hey, I don't make the rules). Jupe has shown incredible perseverance as a Fashion Gay, not letting his handicap of color-blindness deter him from his 30-something destination as Power Gay.

In accordance with the Leave No Man Behind Policy, posses were dispatched back downtown after it was discovered via Twitter that Margueritte had been towed (anyone who thinks twitter is only filled with people chronicling their breakfast schedule can now suck it). Her husband arrived first and they are making their arduous way home now.

Godspeed.

Mah Gays

" ...It's in a substore around the corner like the gays during the Reagan era."

--the answer I got from one of my FoodGays, when I asked how he was able to buy wine at Kroger Reserve (his name for the Woodford County Kroger; unlike Atlanta's MurderKroger, we can't buy wine at our Krogers yet, until the petition passes that says we can)

You won't typically see me referring to Mah Gays by name here on the blog, or in the column, or on facebook -- unless it's with their express permission (and that's actually true of most folks I know socially -- straight, gay, or indifferent -- unless I'm linking to their blogs or something, where they've probably ID'd themselves. I have plenty cousins who don't speak to me from things I wrote in the 80s, so I try to be respectful of anonymity.)

As far as I know, every one of my Gays is out, out, out.... but not everybody's gays are. Some of my girlfriends have Gays who are conditionally out... but just not at work... or out...but only at work... or out, to everybody but their family members, or out, to everybody but their office. In every case, I call them the Lance-Bass-kidding-themselves-Gays if they think anybody has ever believed they were In, but that is most assuredly not my call. I don't want to inadvertently blow somebody's cover to their boss or their granny or their congregation on my facebook wall.

(Some people find Facebook overbearing in specifying marital status and whether or not you're interested in men or women -- I think it doesn't go far enough. I want to know: gay? straight? married? rich? poor-but-genteel? white trash? married-but-separated? married-but-slippin-it-to-the-secretary? married-to-a-woman, but-interested-in-men-under-30-with-6paks. Get it all out there and save everybody some time.)

Mah Gays loosely fall into three categories: Power Gays (my longtime gay husband is a Power Gay, but he wasn't openly one in college, so I'm definitely not the one in charge of which frat brothers know what); Food Gays (who may also be cross-classified as Power Gays); and Junior Gays (20-something gays who are working their way up). My Fashion Gay, for example, is a Junior Gay, but his destiny is as a Power Gay.

At a wonderfully elaborate dinner a few weeks ago, I sat across the table from my gay husband and hishusband (my husband-in-law), next to my new friend Amy, and she gasped audibly when I said something about only wishing the FoodGays could be there. We looked around to see if something had perhaps stung her, and she explained, "I didn't know you could say that." Our collective answer was, "didn't know you could say what...Food...?" She explained she'd been told that sort of reference was pejorative and homophobic. That was met with a collective Siiiiiigh... cause it made us all... saaaaaaad. There are no homophobes in our social circle that we know of (if there were, we probably would out them... and force them to watch Tim Gunn on a loop.)

Her reaction gave me a moment's pause though, as one of my Food Gays, ChefT, had just said something on facebook recently about his leg injury and whether or not he'd make it to Church the next day on crutches or a cane. I immediately smarted off on his wall something to the effect of... Oh relax... that nobody was expecting him to kneel on that injury ...except maybe  [insert name of his life partner here].

I had already taken "my Ambien" for the night (that's what my Mom started calling it and now it's never "an Ambien" or just "Ambien," it's My Ambien, or Mah Ambien, to more accurately reflect my accent).

But I did worry -- even through the pharmaceutical haze -- that maybe I'd said something... inappropriate, at best, or at least not for public consumption. Then the Life Partner posted a very jovial comment right underneath mine, along the lines of "...and that Ladies and Gentleman, is why ace has 5000 facebook friends."

Then I told them both they had to learn to Play Hurt. (They're FoodGays-who-also-watch-Football, so I knew that reference was appropriate.)