jeeps & fries

yesterday was john's high-holy-holiday, the new england international auto show. (thank god the tummy flu that had him on the couch all day today didn't strike yesterday! poor guy- i felt so bad for him when i was finally unshackled from my bottomless groupwork and came home at 6p to find him curled up on the couch with blimpers watching 60mins.)

so after several of these auto shows the past few years, i can finally say that i'm coming to appreciate the whole thing as more than stepping into a giant issue of road & track magazine while keeping a nervous eye on the nearest exit at all times. this year i was extra excited to see the new 4-door wranglers *and* i also got fries. i've definitely decided that anything involving fries and jeeps can't be all that bad :) my dad and our friend jon also came along for the ride... here are a few pics:

here we are in my honda element:


happy john, front seat. happy jon, back seat:


john and big g:


anyone unsure of what to get me for xmas- i'll take this one please:


and by my favorite picture of the day, j.mo's in the zone:

how cute is that pic?

after the show we had a few more people turn up at our place for a hearty dinner of homemade lentil soup and bread and a couple of glasses of wine. but that's about where the enjoyable weekend ended- from there on out the rest of my weekend was a blur of social capital, vietnamese youth, hurrican katrina, powerpoint and papercuts. from 10a-6p i was at school working on a group project to prepare for our 75 minute presentation on thursday night. all was not lost, however- the dining hall where we did all our work today hosts and all you can squeal brunch buffet for $5.25. naturally i ate my weight in homefries and french toast.

so now it's nearly monday (again). my last full week at my current job- next week i'll still be there too, but with the short week because of thanksgiving this week really feels like it's more or less the end. and then.... stay tuned. time for travel job #5 since leaving australia at the end of 1999. it will be nothing but non-stop glitz'n'glam as i return to my roots as supervisor of air operations. but first, i'd rather focus on all the stuffing and mashed potatoes that are just around the corner :)

hope everyone's week gets off to a good start...

biglove,
g

marriage*

i never imagined that in my lifetime i'd be able to get married. well, i did briefly entertain the idea of moving to the netherlands to marry jan voorstoot- but really... all those endless hours in wooden clogs? so for all intents and purposes, i really didn't expect to ever get married.

fast forward to 2006 and here i am in massachusetts, married to john. and regardless of whether or not our marriage is legally sanctioned, i know that the bond we share, the love that fills our daily life- this is what makes us partners & best friends for the long haul. call it a marriage, a domestic partnership, a civil union... or refuse to call it anything at all. at the end of most days, all of these words, political rhetoric and inability to value what we have for what it is- none of this really matters to me.

but when it does start to matter is when i leave work and see all the people in front of the state house- half of them on my side and the other half of them making a scene over something that really has no bearing on their lives. how does my being married to john effect you odd people in any way, shape or form? do i care how you live? would i ever comment on who you decide to spend your life with? no, i don't and would never- it really couldn't matter less to me. and in fact, if i can be all american for a moment or two, isn't that what this place is all about? you do your thing and i do mine- and as long as no one is doing anyone harm then isn't it all good?

so today i felt eternally grateful for the people that were out in front of the state house making sure gay marriage is here to stay. because while i may not have ever made the effort to get out there and ask for it myself, i certainly was happy to start planning my own wedding when it all happened in 2003. and now that i can say i'm married i'm really not all that sure i want someone to mess with my life- withmy feeling of being married just like every other married couple. and i want my kids to know that what their dads share is *nothing less* than what every other married couple shares. for me i think it comes down to an issue of respect. before marriage was an option for me, i didn't feel any overwhelming need to try and identify with it since we simply were not welcome to participate. but now that three years of same-sex marriage have passed in massachusetts, i'm not about to give up what we've gained. we're married- just like thousands of other couples in this state, gay or straight. it really isn't up to our representatives or the people to re-decide what marriage is.

back to utah...

we the fine people of massachusetts finally have ourselves a new governor:



it's about time someone sent mitt back to his native utah, where he can live out the rest of his liquor-free mormon days with a gunrack and his four wives.

a-men & congrats deval patrick... we've been waiting a long time for you :)

sweetjesusgoodlord we've got another meth-head man-whore at the pulpit

so it's all over the news right now that Ted Haggard, some big guy evangelical bible thumper, is in trouble for buying himself a little brokeback preacherman and passing the crackpipe. why is anyone surprised by this type of stuff anymore?


here's a random pic of him from the innernets after he got high and super-glued his hands together. sure does look strung out to me:


apparently he has had a lot to say against gay marriage and he has also been a regular participant in white house conference calls as a part of bush's whole faith-based clusterfuck policy.

luckily he's got a really strong argument in his defense:

from cnn.com
Pastor admits buying meth
A top evangelical leader who is accused of paying a male prostitute for sex admitted today he contacted his accuser "for a massage" and purchased methamphetamine from him. But the Rev. Ted Haggard said he never had sex with Mike Jones and threw away the drugs.

just a massage? uh-huh. and threw away the drugs? riiiiight.

keeping the public in public transportation

last night after class i hopped on the redline at porter square just like the ending to any other evening spent at school. so as my classmate Ny and i sat chatting, at harvard square a rather scruffy looking guy carrying what appeared to be a surfboard wrapped in garbage bags and holding a mangled starbucks cup just barely made it on the train before the doors slammed shut.

ok, whatever- as long as he's not going to try to sit on either of our laps we pretty much ignore him and chat on.

and then i can hear him muttering-

'fuck'

'oh fuck'

and he opens his elastic-waist sweatpants, puts his head down and proceeds to throw up into his own pants.

at which point i turn to Ny (who is mid-sentence) and say 'uh we've got a little situation over there and need to move NOW.' we were down at the other end of the car in no time. and at the next station Ny got off and i switched cars. problem solved.

i'm kinda left wondering if perhaps the T should reconsider their decision to fit some of the cars with new fabric seats. yeah the old black vinyl ones get tore up after a while and are a little uncomfortable in july, but at least they can be hosed down from time to time. lordy knows mister man didn't manage to capture all of his liquidbits in his own pants (although we must give him credit for his valiant effort). it's not like you can febreeze that shit.

i say keep the vinyl seats. please.

anyways- two stops later at charles mgh this well put together but very shitfaced woman gets on the train and comes stomping down the middle of the car with her cellphone extended out at arms-length like she's trying to pick up a signal and/or is reliving a scene from flashdance. cellphone out, arm up she staggers and stomps all the way to the end of the car and proceeds to walk straight into the emergency exit door with a large THUD. she staggered a few steps in reverse and then got a death grip on one of the poles and made kissy/fixing-my-lipstick-faces at her own reflection the rest of the way to south station.

and it wasn't even a full moon last night.

every twelve seconds

last night j.mo and i ventured into the great beyond that is boston's north end for italian food with our good friends Linda and Natalia (Natalia's our secret KGB russian bride- shhhh...) the food was awesome- i was able to get the chef to throw together a dairy free mushroom risotto *and* i scored all of j.mo's spare shrooms too- so i was basking in the glow of mushroomfest2006 all evening. well, the glow could have also been martini-related i suppose.

after dinner natalia, j.mo and i trekked over to brighton to see little-aussie-battler-pop-gem-in-the-rough ben lee. after a painful ride on the green line with BU freshmen frat boys talking about beer-drinking donkeys at a bar in florida, we turned up just in time to grab a drink and have ben get started. and it was so much fun- he's a big goof, but that's why we love him. here are some tiny blurry pictures for you:





it's hard to believe that october is just about over- have fun trickin'n'treatin' tonight :) check out the pumpkin i carved on saturday:




every twelve seconds
someone remembers
that we're all in this together
-ben lee

it's the great pumpkin...

this past weekend was pumpkinfest in boston... we broke the world record for the most simultaneously lit jack-o-lanterns. but really, how hard is it to beat keene, new hampshire at anything- let alone pumpkins??

most importantly, my parents were in town to celebrate my mum's birthday. and the amazing news that her cancer is in remission. i was speechless when i heard the news and more or less still am. definitely sleeping easier, but still speechless ;) to say it was wonderful news and an awesome feeling really just doesn't even come close- but it will have to do. so good on ya mum- !

here are some pics...









my personal favorite from the day... there's something about all that orange, green and blue:










seems as though a couple of gourds got mixed in :)


oh boston...

down the cape...

this past weekend j.mo and i stayed with our friends mags (the butter queen) and jon in wellfleet, a sleepy little seaside town just a few miles from the great pink vortex some call provincetown. maggie's family has a gorgeous house there, complete with beautiful gardens and a lovely fireplace. not such a bad place to spend a few days- the weather was perfect and of course the food was pretty good too.

here are some pics...

headline news around town:


where massachusetts ends:




oh the timing. it was lesbian weekend in p-town. i'm not used to being around so much testosterone and bad hair. and this survey says there was more camouflage on the streets of p-town than there is in baghdad.


even the jack-o-lanterns dispensed tampons and had faint mustaches:


we did everyone's xmas shopping while in town too:


good go-go juice:


mmmhmmm- dick wasn't the only man in town munching on kittens last weekend ;)


more from around town:










and the beach...









a little treasure found at cumberland fahms:


the entire house is decked out in seashells, driftwood, stuffed gulls et al. all very beachy. and then in the kitchen we find the kwanza bus, full of pineapples and island peeps.

when vegans dream...

so last night i had a dream that hilary clinton was in our living room, preparing for a press conference.


and in the middle of all the commotion- all the wires, microphones and camera-crews... she leans over, opens her jacket, takes out ham sandwich and shoves the entire thing into her mouth.



and i was the only one who noticed, of course.

melts my buttah

i found one last random pic i forgot about on my phone from froggie and avery's visit... and i absolutely love it-

a potato shoot

so i was emailing back and forth with my cousin ty this morning...

he sends this:
'Any big plans this weekend? If the weather holds here, I’m hoping to get us down to Ft. Popham for a good, old fashioned photo shoot'

maybe it was getting up at o'dark hundred this morning.
or the three cups of coffee by 9am.
or doing too many things at once.

but i read 'potato shoot'

and not only did i read 'potato shoot' but i even went as far as emailing him back to ask what the fuck a is 'potato shoot?' i assumed it was some sort of backwoods of maine annual tradition involving my most beloved edible item and firearms... something like an annual fully-loaded clambake or an AK-47 blueberry fest. i'm pretty sure i had a moment of panic while i imagined the mashed potato orgy i had been missing out on all these years. i was a still little stumped by the 'shoot' part- although it did remind me of when i bought this timeless classic for j.mo as a stocking stuffer:



ty's response?

'That’s photo there captain, not potato'

right- i knew that.

the Big P(odunk)

from dictonary.com:
Podunk  /–noun
any small and insignificant or inaccessible town or village
[Origin: 1660–70, American; generic use of Podunk, village near Hartford, Conn.]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

clearly these people are referring to the site of the Big E. for the non-new englanders out there, the Big E is a giant country fair that lasts most of the month of september. we used to go when we were little kids- when things like cows and dodgy convict-operated rides were our allotted yearly intake of glitz and glam. it had been many years since i had gone, but this year my mum (who is finally feeling a little better) really wanted to go. and is anyone going to argue with a mum that has been through everything she's dealt with the past few months? i think not.

so j.mo and i headed off into the great beyond that is the western half of the state a couple of fridays ago. as we sat sandwiched betweened suv's in bumper to bumper traffic, the faint smell of manure in the air, it started to become clear what we were in for. a good ol' fashioned podunkfest. it might have been the woman knitting in the passenger seat of the tank behind us... or maybe it was the anti-gay marriage jesusfreaks standing by the entrance to the parking lot in all their denim-on-denim glory that gave it away. call me crazy, but things started to sour faster than a pint of straight-from-the-cow's-teat-left-out-in-the-sun-official-beverage-of-the-big-E before we even got started. poor j.mo- he had no idea what he was in for.

after trekking across the rv-peppered parking lot and bypassing the guy in the patriotic balloon hat we were in. the air was heavy with the scent of fried everything, most of it stuck onto skewer sticks. in fact, many of the people also seemed to have been battered and fried. it was a fine assembly of small-town americana. a clusterfuck of airbrushed t-shirts, army pants w/heels, mullets, kids on leashes and us, the two gay vegans from the city. i think the part that scared me most was how close all this was happening to home. i was also a little scared of the huge bbq turkey legs.

let's see some pics...

that's right- 'home' of the denim shirt:


nothing like a little flash of elf tata's to keep the morning humming along:


and for those who hadn't seen enough pork-on-parade:


and these were everywhere... for those who would normally just go straight from goatstrokin at the petting zoo to fried dough:


shortly after all of this john retreated to his dark place and refused food and water the rest of the day. i think he still may be recovering. i have to say, though- the day wasn't a complete wash... my parents were having a good time and my sister and nephew showed up later in the day too. and i know that just being together was what my parents wanted, so mission accomplished. we got to play a few games with my nephew and risked life and limb on a couple of rides.







by far the higlight of the day was when my dad (affectionately known as big g) walked up to a rather large woman selling cowboy hats and belts. she was wearing a raccoon hat and D-lux silkscreened t shirt featuring a wolf and waterfall scene au natural.

here's exactly what he said, no joke:

' you know something-? you look just like that wolf on your t shirt.' he then scurried off and did a little dick-van-dyke-jump-up-in-the-air-and-click-your-heels-together-routine. it was the most fabulous thing we saw all day.

so that was the trauma that was the big E... forever renamed the big P(odunk). needless to say, we won't be returning.

otherwise, things have been good- just super busy. school is in full swing and i've got more groupwork and projects than i can shake a cattle prod at. somewhere in there we also had froggie and avery come to town, which was so much fun:



and this past weekend we went back out to western massachusetts (gasp!) and enjoyed a lovely new england autumn day of hiking and cider donuts and lesbian watching in northampton. we did have a moment of uncomfortable silence as we passed the exit to the big E and both re-lived a few moments of sheer terror as flashbacks of corndogs and spandex and salsa makers with 'samuri blades' streaked by.



alrighty- that's all i've got for now. hope everyone is doing well :)(: