I’ve mentioned earlier that half the reason I haven’t been updating a lot is due to my project at work. Lo, behold, it is at a very critical stage right now, the motherfucking project. At this point, it is starting to feel as though I have actually pushed it through a birthing canal, a fourteen-pound giant-headed Powerpoint deck that will bite your fingers off if you so much as look at it funny. You should see the graphs, people! The charts! Oh, the butt ugly default colors that we have to use! I tried to make them in shades of pastels, but then it clashed with our corporate logo, which is SO first year design school.
Can you tell that Project Runway started? (By the way, I want to hurt the No Wire Hangers guy, and not in the way that he probably enjoys.)
Anyway, the project. It’s out of my hands at the moment, the Schoolhouse Rock version of going to committee while I hope that it gets made into a bill. It will, though, because otherwise, I’m going to shiv someone in the ladies bathroom. And I might even have to fly to India. Which would sort of be awesome. But first, the waiting and the seeing. And then more of the waiting.
Pennylicious almost got to help me with the project, which would have been really cool, since we’ve worked for the same company for five years, but never actually touched what the other does. But we have now officially had a meeting, during which we did not discuss shoes or lunch plans or doing naughty things to boys. Except that I’m lying about the shoes, but it wasn’t my fault that I was wearing a particularly cute but impractical pair that day.
On a different meeting, I had to deal with a particularly odious person who doesn’t have a lot of power, but cherishes the tiny bit of power that she does have. And after said meeting, I was absolutely seething.
I never meant to become one of those people who mince words. Really, I can swear up a blue streak as well as your average sailor (my mother’s drunken escapades were probably where I first understood the power of a well-turned colorful phrase) and for proof of this, I direct you to the 3 Fast 3 Furious podcasts, where I am trying very hard to behave and still manage to drop the F-bomb at least once a week (although on the last one and I think the one that comes out this Thursday, I have increased my average significantly).
Imagine, this from the same girl who chose not to say ‘hell’ when reciting bible passages in parochial school. The devil came from a quiet place that had no name and was veiled in secrecy.
Words have power. There’s no denying that.
And I suppose that it is from this well-spring that I have issues with a few words. I’ve detailed this before, but to sum up: I cannot stand gender-centric slang, particularly those words regarding female genitalia.
After this meeting, I just sat at my desk and fumed about how stupid she had been, how completely self-serving and pointless, how she was not taking the company’s best interest to heart just to serve her own ego and for the first time in my adult life, I actually wished that I could break my own rule and use one of the Verboten Words. The worst one, actually.
Yes, that one.
I just wanted to use it in my own head, to assuage my shock and dismay. My poor tragic brain scrambled. Even though she had very much been a jerk, it wasn’t fair to womankind to use that word, not even in the silence of my own brain. I finally settled on ‘Dumb Bitch’ which still makes me feel ashamed for signifying that as a woman she should have acted differently, but man, it still felt good to say it.
I hope that this means that my internal censors are strong enough to resist the use of those words permanently. Because I can only hold those around me to the constraints I follow myself, and if I start using the evil words, then I can no longer restrict their use in my presence. Which would really chafe my vagina.
From: Esteban
Subject: When you next go to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods…
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 8: 16 am
To: Weetabix
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000CQ01JW/trikuarestudi-20/104-0773512-3860763
Can you get me some of that?
From: Weetabix
Subject: Re: When you next go to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods…
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 9:42
To: Esteban
They have that in the Snooty Grocery’s natural foods section. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it there. If not, they have it at the Mega Mart. I had no idea that you liked Annie’s?
From: Esteban
Subject: Re: When you next go to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods…
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:01
To: Weetabix
I don’t have any idea either. But we will find out!!
S
From: Esteban
Subject: Re: When you next go to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods…
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:02
To: Weetabix
Okay, perhaps two exclamation points at the end of that last message was a bit much. Sorry.
S
One of my ‘Must Do Before I Die’ things is to spend Halloween in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, and this year, even though Halloween falls on a godforsaken TUESDAY, it’s on. Plane tickets have been acquired. Costume ideas are afoot. Castro Bitches, you hear that? Bring IT.
Right now, I’m torn between my prescribed costume (Ursula the Sea Witch, which would require a meaty upper arm expos’, not to mention, a gallon of lavender body paint) and something that is so twee and belies my secret shame that I hardly dare utter it, but it involves a pink dress, three inch long fake eyelashes, marabou and probably some very cute whiskers.
The problem here is that since I plan to be in the Castro almost every night, it seems silly to stay at my favorite Hotel on the Hill. And unfortunately, aside from one frightening budgety dorm-style hotel (Um, no), there aren’t a lot of hotel options in the area. I’ve been researching vacation rentals and have some e-mails out, but in the process of my search, I realized that I had been ignoring a gold mine of opportunities.
The Gay/Lesbian travel industry.
I am sort of stupid. I mean, I’ve even done some writing for a GLBT magazine, you’d think that I would realize that of course there are more places to stay in the Castro than are listed on Travelocity. If there has ever been one belief I hold dear, it is in the idea of capitalism and of course a free market wouldn’t let me down.
So I looked, and oddly enough, the things that are important to me (location, nice sheets) are also important to the gay boys. And cheap! The B&B’s are totally affordable and darling!
There is a catch, though. There’s always a catch. Specifically, some of them stipulate that they are specifically accommodations for GLBTs.
Neither I nor my travel companion fit any letter of that acronym. Disappointed, I continued to look for the perfect vacation rental, but those affordable B&B’s haunted me.
And then I thought: I wonder if I could pass? I mean, I certainly don’t have any issues with the lifestyle whatsoever, and I get a little giddy that we live in a time when men can kiss each other on the street without being sent to prison ala Oscar Wilde. And I don’t think the recommendations are being exclusionary or discriminatory, but rather making it clear that any guests are going to be exposed to a lot of alternative lifestyles. And goodness knows, the ladies who love ladies? Love Bix. As do the boys who love boys, but that is a bit more of a mystery. Maybe I make them look thin.
And it’s not like they’re going to have a quiz, right? I discussed this with Esteban and he conjectured ‘You would be good in the written portion of a test, but probably not so much on the oral’ and then could no longer be reached for comment because he was laughing too hard at his own joke.
This is a bit of a moral dilemma. I hate to be dishonest, even if by omission with a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. And the idea of being in the Straight closet all weekend is very humorous. And the location! Perfection! Absolute perfection! And I love the Castro, with its gorgeous men making out everywhere. The dogs wearing outfits! The Starbois! The safest neighborhood in the entire city!
Actually, you know what bothers me the most? The fact that my life would be imitating a Horatio Sans movie.
Shudder.
