Ding Dong DOMA Dead

The Defense of Marriage Act is dead and now those of us gay people who are legally married (or getting there as we will soon convert our civil union into a marriage) can expect federal benefits and recognition, the same as any other married couple.

I am gratified that the Supreme Court invoked the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause in this decision. As the opinion by Justice Kennedy says, “DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others.”

I am no constitutional expert but on a human level, the gay marriage for me debate boiled down to this: If marriage is good enough for straight couples who have known each other for 10 days, it’s good enough for couples like Steve and I, who have been in a committed relationship for 10 years. And 10 years is nothing — look how long Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer were together before they got married. What was the purpose to DOMA other than to be a mean-spirited denial of rights to a group of people? It wasn’t a defense of the institution of marriage as much as being vigilant that the wrong people didn’t get into the country club.

The key problem with DOMA and the heart of the gay marriage debate was the idea that my marriage would be “less worthy than the marriages of others.” I am lucky enough that none of my friends or family ever saw my relationship as less than a straight relationship (Exhibit A: the outpouring of love at our wedding). I felt like for some people, the opposition to gay marriage was rooted in a desire to keep gay people at a lower status.

It’s not just about the Social Security benefits; it’s about feeling your relationship and your life is worth as much as anyone else’s. This decision is another step toward deleting the scare quotes around the word marriage for gay people. I am lucky enough that people in my life acknowledge my relationship but a lot of gay people aren’t and I hope they’re starting to breathe a little easier now.

I felt like for years, the conversation about gay relationships went as follows:

Gay couple: We’ve been in a committed relationship for years and would like the same rights as straight couples.

Person in charge: Too bad. You two aren’t married so you can’t have them.

Gay couple: Well … can we get married then?

Person in charge: No.

It’s like we were being told we couldn’t have something and then being penalized for not having it.

Without marriage, longtime gay relationships were sort of formless. There was no word for what people had, nothing that carried the weight of marriage and all the commitment that implies. Someone could be your partner but that was just a vague (and kind of clinical) designation. In upholding traditional marriage (which, by the way, I do support as my parents have had one for 40 years and I am the product of it), some people seemed to be holding gay relationships as a lesser status.

That’s what kills me: How alike gay and straight marriages and relationships are. Sometimes I wonder, what do people think gay couples do? We’re not doing molly at the white party every weekend. We’re laughing at sitcoms and doing laundry and having the same stupid arguments like every other couple does.

The fight is not over and gay couples in most of America still cannot marry. But the fact that DOMA is dead, and that the government recognizes our marriage as equal to a straight marriage adds to the feeling of acceptance we’ve already felt from our friends and family. It’s enormously important and empowering.

I had the most catered dream

I dreamed I became some sort of wedding planner. I was in our kitchen with my parents, Jeanine and a bunch of other people. We were cooking for an upcoming wedding.

Someone asked me where the paper towels were because we had run out. I said they were under the sink. The person who asked seemed confused about this and needed more specifics. “Just fucking open the cabinet door,” I snapped.

I didn’t mean to snap but did the person really think I had nothing better to do than give explicit instructions for where to find the paper towels? I was planning a wedding. Figure it out on your own.

The next day I stopped over Ann’s house to do some more work on the wedding. Erik was there watching TV. He made some sort of hilariously vile comment, merging two nasty terms for genitalia into one catchy portmanteau. I can’t remember what it was.

This dream was even more surreal than most because I have no desire to become any sort of event planner. I have already been through the D-Day like machinations of planning a wedding and have no desire to plan anyone else’s, thank you very much. We had fun and everything but it got to be a little much at times with putting together all those favors and centerpieces. Luckily, Salero was very organized and helpful so I had no stress there.

I can’t imagine being a wedding planner. Now that my own is over, I just want to sit back for awhile and be a guest at other people’s functions and only have to worry about showing up on time.

Great concert,!!!

Last weekend we saw a concert by!!! It was a great show!!! It was at the Union Transfer, which is a charming little venue!!! I’d never been there before!!!

The show was basically a 90-minute dance party!!! Everyone was packed into the small space and dancing all night!!! Given the fan base, there were a lot of hipsters!!! So we saw a lot of tight jeans, patterned leggings and glasses with excessively large lenses!!!

As expected, the setlist drew heavily on the band’s latest album, Thr!!!er!!! So there was the jubilant “Californiyeah” alongside the relatively mellow “Even When the Water’s Cold”!!! There were some choice selections from past albums, including the eponymous debut and Louden Up Now!!! “Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass” was pretty good!!! My favorites were from my favorite of the band’s album, Myth Takes!!! I loved the syncopated hiccup of “All My Heroes Are Weirdoes,” the jittery “Must Be the Moon” and the best song in the set, “Heart of Hearts”!!! Its cacophonous, chaotic ending brought the house down!!!

The lead singer is a piece of work!!! He performed in a T-shirt and short swim trunks printed with the album cover of the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls!!! A few times during the show, he left the stage to dance among the crowd, which was fun!!! At one point, he was perched somewhat precariously on a railing overlooking the audience!!! A piece of the drummer’s equipment broke so the singer spent the dead time telling stories and taking questions from the crowd!!!

They had a great band!!! There was the rhythm guitar, bass, several keyboards and not one but two drummers!!! During the show, the singer called his genre dance rock!!! I had heard of this before and never knew what this style meant!!! Since I really like the vibe of this band, I guess I’m a fan of dance rock!!!

The name of that genre always puzzled me a little, like someone had to come up with a specific name for something that had always seemed obvious to me: Rock music you could dance to!!! I feel like rock music started out as danceable and only later turned into something ponderous, something people only sat at parties and talked about, rather than cutting loose and letting the groove move them!!!

Tickets were only $15!!! This is refreshingly cheap for a concert!!! For little more than the cost of a movie ticket, we had a much better experience than most of the movies I’ve seen at the theater lately!!!

Apropos of Nothing

Isn’t Flag Day redundant? Memorial Day and Fourth of July are only five weeks apart and both of those are basically “flag days” anyway. Do we really need another America holiday in between those two? I did agree that it was inappropriate for HGTV to suggest using an actual American flag as a tablecloth for a patriotic BBQ. There’s a huge difference between having a tablecloth that’s a representation of a flag and an actual flag with potato salad stains on it.

If you serve crackers, put out flat slices of cheese. Cheese cubes don’t fit well on the crackers and it just gets awkward.

I’m spending as little money in Pennsylvania as possible now. I figure that if Steve and I can’t move back there because the state won’t recognize our marriage, then to hell with them. They won’t get my sales tax. I’m supporting Delaware as much as possible. I’ve switched from the Philadelphia Inquirer to the Delaware News Journal and from Yuengling to Dogfish Head.

I’m working on scanning all my newspaper clippings and it’s really amazing to see just how much I wrote over those years at the paper. I had forgotten a lot of the people I interviewed and can’t believe I sat through all those night meetings. It’s much easier to digitize all this than have all the clips take up space in the basement. I’m on a quest to dig us out of the pile of crap in the garage.

God, Sheena Easton was the worst.

Am I naïve to believe that the people should have some idea of what the government is doing to protect us? Am I naïve to believe that if there are trade-offs to be made of liberty for safety that the people should make those trade-offs rather than having the government do it and only tell us when the administration’s back is against the wall?

I am happy with our new deck furniture. I’m just hoping that the flowers I planted come back. The deck faces due west with no shade so it’s hard to keep things alive.

Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed

Did it rain yesterday? I was only vaguely aware. It was dark and threatening as I walked into the office but I beat the rain. People who came in after me got soaked but I didn’t notice the rain outside. By the time I left work, the blacktop was dry.

The reason I’m so out of it regarding meteorology is that my office does not have a window. The only windows nearby are those in people’s offices so I have to go out of my way to see what’s going on outside. I don’t often go out for lunch so I mostly spend my eight hours with nothing to look at. As a result, my skin has that healthy fluorescent glow.

During the week, I mostly experience the weather as updated information online. The real world is that close to me and I just can’t see it. This can be positive or negative.

The negative is that I often miss beautiful summer days as I toil away in my cave. I can walk outside and it might have been a beautiful day but I haven’t seen it. I also miss my thunderstorms and usually can barely hear the thunder outside. Sometimes I do try to get out at lunch just so I have some sense of the outside world. It also helps to have that work from home day once a week. I find I do get more done and am more serene at work when I can actually open a window or see the sun. Some people “work from home” when they work from home but I actually work from home.

There are actually some positives to not seeing the weather. For the most part, I am isolated from the annual winter freak-out whenever the first snowflake falls. I don’t have to watch people pressed up against the window in wonderment, as if they are people from the Sudan who have never seen snow or ice. I also don’t have to listen to people break down in hysterics over it being “BAD OUT.” I just get my work done and go home. Someday I will lift my head up from my desk and leave the office and a blizzard will have fallen while I was working unawares. I will then be trapped at work … forever.

Sincerely

Awhile back, I read someone make the argument that we should no longer end our emails with any type of closing. Messages should just stop. No “sincerely.” No “best.” No “yours.” Just … end.

I don’t think this is a good idea. For personal emails, it doesn’t matter as much because I don’t think I need to start my messages to my husband with “Dear Steve” and end with “Sincerely” and my full name. But for business emails, it’s just common courtesy to have a salutation and closing. I always say “Dear Dr. Foot” and close with “Sincerely” and my name and address. I don’t think it matters much exactly what you use since some people will drop the “Dear” and just use the person’s name for an opener and people have variations on the closing.

I think you need something for professional emails, though. If you just start asking your question with no preamble, it can come off as rude and demanding. You wouldn’t call someone and not say hello or goodbye and you wouldn’t walk into a rom and just start conducting business with someone. There’s no harm in exchanging a few pleasantries in emails.

I believe the argument against the email closings was the time-honored refrain of “This is just the way it is in the age of Twitter and blah blah blah something about Millennials.” Maybe the world’s communications have changed in the last few years but you know what? If you’re in the business world, you’re going to deal with a lot of middle aged people like me who remember the proper way to write a letter and they might think you’re rude for just launching into your business.

Sure, that’s what we need in today’s communications: Even less courtesy.

Sincerely,

Brian

Trust Us

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I’m not a paranoid person who believes the government is monitoring my thoughts and will send black helicopter gunships to shoot me. I also generally support President Obama, having voted for him twice. Yet those two things are in conflict now after the revelation that the National Security Administration is mining data from nine major Internet providers.

I no longer trust the Obama administration. The fact that the PRISM program was secret to begin with gives me no faith that these people will do the right thing and not monitor non-threatening Internet and phone usage from Americans. I am a drop in the bucket in this country and my disillusionment will mean nothing but trust is still a crucial part of governing. But on this issue, this president and this administration have totally lost my trust and it’s their own fault.

One person who was familiar with the PRISM program said the NSA can “see your ideas form as you type them.” And we’re supposed to have what sort of reassurance that this power will only be used for good? A promise from Congress? A secret judicial decision?

Nothing to see here, folks. Just trust that we’re keeping you safe. If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’ve got nothing to fear. Right?

Furthermore, what assurance do we have that the information that the NSA obtains from these servers, private information on you and me, will not leak to third parties such as terrorists? The existence of the PRISM program itself leaked so it does not inspire confidence that the acquired information is safe. (Plus, the PRISM slides that leaked look really crappily designed and that makes this whole operation look incompetent.)

This is especially a disgrace since Obama is simply continuing the spirit of the Patriot Act and the tactics of the Bush administration that he once decried. As a senator, Obama once said Bush’s surveillance policies “put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” It was wrong under Bush and it’s just as wrong under Obama. I’m kind of too angry about this to express myself but this New York Times editorial says what I can’t: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/president-obamas-dragnet.html?src=me&ref=general .

This is a president who once supported transparency but now we discover has maintained various secret programs to obtain the phone records of millions of Americans, the phone records of journalists and also has a backdoor into the most popular online servers. Let me guess: The administration’s response will be “You’ll just have to trust us to ensure that we do not abuse our powers.”

No dice. The fact that these programs have been going on in secret does not inspire confidence. It is also a concern that the alleged backdoor access into these companies’ servers bypasses any safeguards such as the consent of the companies or any warrants or court approval. The government apparently has unfettered access now. This all may be legal under the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but this type of thing can make the public, like me, lose trust in the White House. And that is something that the president will have to answer for. 

And if anybody in the NSA is monitoring this blog post, I respectfully request that you shove it up your ass.

Apostrophe's

There’s apparently a movement to eliminate the apostrophe symbol from English. While cutting this curved little line might lower the blood pressure of people like me who can’t stand the misuse of it’s and its, I don’t think an apostrophe-free language is a good idea for a number of reasons.

The reasoning behind the punctuation change is what bothers me. There’s some group called Kill the Apostrophe that says the apostrophe “serves only to annoy those who know how it is supposed to be used and to confuse those who dont.” A mark of punctuation confuses people who don’t know how to use it? Have you ever considered, I don’t know, learning the proper usage?

But no. By all means, let’s eliminate the apostrophe altogether so people who are lazy and ignorant can remain lazy and ignorant.

The other thing that floors me is the argument that the apostrophe is “wasteful, snobbish and anachronistic” nowadays when people are texting. Let me get into high dudgeon and pull out my editor’s red pen and lacerate everyone with my arguments against this.

First of all, what on earth does an apostrophe waste? Space on the page or screen? There are enough editor’s tricks that you can easily tighten your content without cutting a mark of punctuation. Does it waste time? Yeah, typing that ‘ is 0.0004 seconds you’ll never get back. How about wasting ink or file sizes? We expend enough ink and kilobytes on stupid crap anyway and we can eliminate these wastes before cutting the apostrophe. Start by not printing every work email you get.

Second, you have to be really dumb to believe the correct use of apostrophes is snobbish. Yeah, me with all my book learnin’ just showing up the common folk. Let’s spell it out: an apostrophe takes the place of a letter or letters, so “let’s” is an abbreviation for “let us.” It also denotes possession. It’s not difficult for anyone with a second-grade education to understand that. I don’t think I’m some kind of aristocratic snob for grasping this concept.

Finally, it’s certainly not an anachronism to use apostrophes in the age of text messages. I fully admit that I skip apostrophes and other marks of punctuation when texting out of impatience and the fact that I don’t have a real keyboard on my phone. But I certainly will follow the rules when I write something that’s not on a phone.

Why do we have to dumb down the English language because some people are using it incorrectly? Changing our language based on texting style is like giving up. It’s like wearing pajama pants and flip-flops to social engagements because hey, everyone’s doing it, right? And you just end up looking awful.

I get that language changes over time but I think it should change to become more precise and more sophisticated, not less. I feel like some people excuse their own mistakes by saying “language changes” and they sound like kids in a high school English class who know they’re wrong but are launching a Hail Mary at the teacher in an attempt to cover their asses.

I just want to live in a world with can’t and don’t, not cant and dont.

Take Two

Sometimes I get the feeling that nothing will ever be done right the first time; that I will always have to go back to the drawing board to fix a flaw. This relates mostly to home improvements. I’ve had some annoying experiences that would confirm my belief that there is always a problem and that nothing ever goes smoothly initially for me.

The latest thing to happen is with the new bed we bought. It’s a Sleep Number and the bed itself is fine. However, when they delivered it, the delivery guys walked into our bedroom and said, “You don’t have a frame?” I guess not. Nobody from the store told us we had to order a frame separately. I just assumed that with the price we paid, a frame came with the bed we ordered. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable assumption. We went from a queen to a king so our old frame is useless. So now the bed is sitting on the floor.

Yeah, I know, we bought an expensive bed and there’s a slight flaw, #firstworldproblems and all that. But now we will have to take the bed apart partially to fit it on the frame, which I’m sure won’t be fun. I will be complaining to the company and try to get a discount because at no point did anybody at the store tell us we would need to order a new frame even though they knew we were going up a size. The guy tried to upsell us on all these other bed accessories but you think it would be part of the training to take 10 seconds and ask, “Hey, do you need a frame?”

I’m not despondent but annoyed. When there was a problem with this bed, it was more of a sigh of “It figures.” This is especially true because just a week earlier, our new deck furniture delivery was delayed because of course, the glass top of the original table was broken so they’d have to come back. It was slightly inconvenient as I had to work from home on another day to accommodate them.

We always have trouble with this kind of thing. When we got our new HVAC system, they guy had to come back the next day because the central air wasn’t working. It was 82 degrees in our house at night and getting hotter. I had a moment of nausea because I thought, “I paid all this money and it’s still an inferno in here.” No, the guys just didn’t turn on the coolant so only the fan was running. How about getting it right the first time?

Several appliances have gotten screwed up. There was the great dishwasher saga of ’10, when the first dishwasher (so they said) wouldn’t fit with our pipes so I had a dishwasher sitting in a box in our dining room, with a non-working appliance under the cabinet. It took several visits to Best Buy and phone calls before I canceled the order and went elsewhere. Our oven also broke soon after we got it and they had to repair it (admittedly that was my fault). We had a leaky faucet and the plumbers had to come back twice and fix it. Then there was that weird leak with the roof when the roofer and the plumber had to come back a few times to investigate.

It’s really just an inconvenience and it doesn’t happen everytime we need some work done on the house. But when it happens, it’s enough to make me sigh and grumble. Sometimes nothing is fixed unless the scene gets at least two more takes.