2007: Closing of the Year

(photo: Sunset behind my parent's house, Christmas Day, 2007)

Best Weekend: In Charlottesville going with LTR to his competition

Best Blog Discovered and (apparently) Lost: Cooper's Corridor.

Best Performance: The Capitol Pride Symphonic Band's (CPSB)performance of Carmina Burana at our April Concert

Biggest Letdown: Coffee with a DCDD board member after the April Concert who completely took the wind out of my sails and made the concert seem a failure. It was at that point I began to give up.

Biggest Success: Conducting the CPSB and the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington (GMCW) at the Kennedy Center

Toughest Decision: Abandoning my independent consulting business and going to work for an agency again.

Best decision: See above.

Second Toughest Decision: Retiring from conducting the CPSB

Most Spiritual Moment: Standing alone between two glaciers in the Andes at about 15,000 feet above sea level just below Salkantay pass. I've never felt more connected to the universe.

Best Buy: Saddlebags for my bike.

Best Friend Made During my Travels: Aziz

Best Friend Made Online: Zac

Friend I had the most fun having drinks with: Matt

Happiest Moment with Friends: Anne and Bruce's Wedding.

Most Heartwarming Moment: Every time my son said "I love you" to me.

Funniest Moment: The Adams Family Finger Snap laid on me by the band during band camp in the first measure of the Melillo (you had to be there).

Best Moment on the Podium: Rehearsing the GMCW and realizing I had surprised them by being good -- or at least not bad.

Hottest Cover Model: Phil. You didn't think I'd leave him out did you?

On the public front:

Biggest surprise: Bush was right. The surge worked.

Human Rights Failure -- Local: Failure of Congress to grant Congressional voting rights to DC taxpayers.

Human Rights Failure -- National: Continued expulsion of gays from the military.

Human Rights Failure -- Global: Torture, continued suspension of Habeas Corpus.

Worst use of the Legal System: What else? The $65 million pants suit.

Unexpected Pro-Gay Hero: Straight, Republican Dan Zwonitzer, who's courageous position prevented an anti-gay measure from passing in Wyoming. I considered the San Diego Mayor who did the same, but Zwonitzer took his stand purely on principle; San Diego's mayor's daughter is gay, giving him a personal reason. Although that's not invalid, Zwoniter's position was more courageous, in my view.

Poster Boy for the Tragic Absurdity of Hiding Openly in the Closet: Larry "Wide Stance" Craig.

Obama vs. Hillary on Gay Marriage

In looking at the two positions between Obama and HRC (the person, not the gay fundraising arm of the Democratic Party) on gay marriage, I became interested in their inner thoughts about their positions.

First Hillary:

"[Gay marriage] is an issue that I’ve had very few years of my life to think
about when you really look at it, when you compare it to a whole life span. I am where I am right now, and it is a position that I come to authentically."

And:

"I believe in full equality of benefits, nothing left out," she said. "From my perspective there is a greater likelihood of us getting to that point in civil unions or domestic partnerships and that is my very considered assessment."

Now Obama (from his book, the Audacity of Hope):

"No matter how much Christians who oppose homosexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgment inflicts pain on good people -- people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ's message than those who condemn them...it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided...I must admit that I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilictions and attributed them to God; that Jesus' call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history."

Knowing that Obama supports full DOMA repeal and the granting of all 1,200 federal benefits to gay couples in civil unions, I'm impressed with his expression of his doubts and at the same time addressing the public and religious aspects of the gay marriage debate so succinctly. The Hillary quotes were the only ones I could find that shed light (barely) on her inner thoughts. I wasn't looking for policy pronouncements here, but instead what each candidate was really thinking.

Obama's book made that easy for me. If there are similar such statement by Hillary, please pass them on.

Random Things

One of the perks of having a kid when flying -- other than getting to preboard (if sitting in a small tube sooner can be considered a "perk") is getting to go into the cockpit. If I can get Eli to say "hi" or "thanks" to the Captain either before or after the flight it's a shoe-in. Even in the post-9/11 world. BTW, those cockpits look surprisingly 1970s in their technology. So do most of the pilots.

We have a new ghost at home. I think I've talked about our unseen resident here before; yesterday morning at about 4:30 am in the kitchen I heard someone (I presumed the LTR) walking in the kitchen behind me and "felt" somone walk in and heard a mumbled "Mornin'" and turned around to see no one -- and the sense that someone had come ambling in was so strong that I called out the LTR's name thinking he had to be there -- only he wasn't. I guess a mumbled "mornin'" is much better than a whispered emphatic "get out!"

I got a guest pass from the gym down the street here. It's called 24 Hour Fitness. I asked them what was the most common question they got from visitors. It was "what are your hours?" As I expected.

Said gym is on the second floor. The only way to get there is to take a moving escalator up to it. I guess they don't want you to wear yourself out before getting there.

I saw a beautiful, unexpected thing tonight. I went to the 6 pm hula show on the beach expecting to be repulsed by something so touristy (okay, okay, full disclosure, I went to get a photo of the loin-cloth-clad polynesian young men lighting the torches). Instead I was mesmerized by the Hula as performed by the "elders" -- a group of 60ish something Polynesian women joyfyully doing the Hula -- in this case a dance representing the natural beatuy of the island of Kuaii. The host admonished us for not applauding them enough and stressed that these were the (tribe's?) elders. They were all beautiful -- but the oldest looking one was stunning -- she had a smile on her face framed by gray hair and wrinkles that radiated joy and beauty. We shove our "elders" out of sight but here they were celebrating beauty by being beautiful -- and their age was no small part of their appeal. It's too bad the Hula has come to be considered tourist shlock for it is an amazingly beautiful dance that links humanity and nature.

Speaking of tourist shlock I bought a Greg Brady Hawaiian Tiki Idol. As someone who now seems to have two ghosts in his house we'll see what happens next.

Surf's up!

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

Someone gave me a tee shirt that says "Fatherhood: the Toughest Job You'll Ever Love." It's a nice shirt, but it, like the "World's Best Dad" tees I've received have remained unworn in my chest of drawers.

It was easy becoming a dad. Being a dad is much harder. And I'm not sure I have bragging rights.

Eli is a great kid. His mothers have done a terrific job raising him. He never went through the terrible twos -- but welcome to the testy threes.

By testy I don't mean touchy. I mean he wants to test what he can get away with and likes to play opposites, meaning, he'll do the exact opposite of what you tell him to do and then look at you to see if you'll let him get away with it, often with a great smile on his face with great joy at this new game he's invented called "Let's Push Daddy's (or mommie's or Pappa's) buttons and see if we can make his/her head explode."

Intuitively I know this is normally and of course I've confirmed this with other parents. This is something I expected.

What I didn't expect was the anger and contempt he'd hurl at me. During yesterday's 14 hour (garage door to final terminal gate) trip he threatened (at the top of his voice) to hurl me from the airplane window and rejected almost every request with a Sith Lord look of defiance on his three year old face. "Eli, please sit down and fasten your seatbelt, we're about to land." "No!" he screamed, looking at me as if he himself would jump out the airplane to avoid doing anything I wanted him to do. (let's face it, he gets this naturally -- his old man is one stubborn son of a bitch). The worst was when he made an etch-a-sketch drawing, told me to save it, and then looked at me and said angrily, "I didn't make it for YOU."

Ouch.

Okay, okay, I know I shouldn't take it personally. And I'm trying as best I can to not outwardly betray any emotion other than calm (I'm not always successful.) But look, when you see the boy less than one-fifth of a year and he wants to toss you out of an airplane when you do, how could it not personally effect you? When a loved one says hurtful things they still hurt even when you know they don't really mean them, do they not?

Christmas night did not go well. We had a fabulous day and his presence and laughter was the best Christmas gift. Then his nighttime going to bed routine started and he was a decidedly unhappy camper. It ended with him hitting me (this is also new and part of his new defiance routine) and telling me later that "I don't want you to tell me a story I want Pappa!!"

I returned to the dinner table while Pappa went to tell him a story in bed. My dad was offering words of reassurance and everyone was telling me not to take it personally. Right.

I knew I couldn't let Christmas end this way so I softly entered Eli's bedroom where Pappa was in the middle of the story. Wordlessly I slipped into Eli's bed and lay down next to him. I listened to Pappa's story -- a story he made up about me riding through a rain storm to get to Eli, dubbed "The Muddy Bike Ride Story" which Eli always requests while here. Eli was laying with his back to me and I put my face deep in the sheets and silently cried tears over the frustration and beauty of it all.

Pappa said his goodnight and left us. We lay there silently for a few moments. Then Eli rolled over facing me, reached down with a little hand and grabbed mine, and pushed his tiny fingers between my own. We lay there like that in the silence for 15 minutes. Knowing he wasn't asleep, I whispered to him, "I love you very, very much." He opened his eyes and whispered, "I love you very much, Daddy."

Yes, it is a tough job. And I'm am often quite sure I'm not up to the task. But how could I not love it?

Goodnight Eli, and goodbye for now. Daddy loves you very, very much

Another Visit Ends

The visits come and go. His changes are constant. This trip he delighted us with increased conversation skills and challenged us with a willfulness to get his own way, which often happened to be the opposite of what we wanted.

It's 5 am, and we leave for the airport soon. The LTR has the hardest task, as we leave him alone here to see the empty room and the unplayed-with toys. No, the loss is not a permanent one, but it is still a loss.

My next blog post will be from Hawaii.

Postcard from Illinois

My parents live on a small lake in downstate Illinois. The lights of the houses look lovely reflected off the calm waters. On Christmas night we drove Eli in a golf cart around the lake to look at the lights. This is my parent's house casting its glow upon the waters.

I snapped this with my digital cam on zoom, no flash. Tips on night photography welcome.

An IM with the Gumshoe

I'm IMing with the Gumshoe as Eli sleeps and I do laundry in preparation for the trip tomorrow to return him to the "land where palm trees sway" (bonus round: Can you identify the song that description is from?) Anyway, here's a snippet of our conversation:

Me: Brb, have to go check on the dryer.
Gumshoe: K
Me: Back. Well, to paraphrase George W. Bush, my clothes are dryer, but not yet dry.
Gumshoe: Tell the dryer to 'bring it on'
Me: Or at least take off that 'Mission Accomplished' sign it hung on the door.

The Gumshoe and I always have deep meaningful conversations like this.

Whither Cooper?

He seems to have gone missing. Should we call the Mounties?

No Wall Between Church and State License Plates

Yes, I find them offensive to my Constitutional sensibilities.

I'm not the only one.

If you opt for one of these plates, the DMV will waive an administrative fee, making these plates cheaper than other specialty plates.

Why does God need favors from the Indiana DMV?

Look -- we all know that this God is the Christian God and these words floating above the American flag are meant to reinforce that we're a Christian nation. I'd be less upset if the state gave people the option to choose "In (fill in the blank) We Trust." And frankly, I wouldn't care if someone personalized their plates to say "JezuzBGr8te" or even, to go to the other extreme "I h8tegayz"

What people choose; fine. What the state chooses, if it strays into endorsing a religion; not fine.

Not Ready Yet

I admit (no surprise!) that I hope Obama wins the Iowa caucus. After a few days in the heartland, though, I am disheartened. One of my family members, upon hearing I was for Obama, said, "you'd vote for a Muslim?"

Oy.

I guess the heartland isn't ready yet to get past their prejudices, racial and religious.

The answer, by the way is yes, I would, if the candidate supported issues consistent enough with my opinions. But Obama, in point of fact, is not a Muslim).

Although Obama is a Christian, he does have perhaps more direct personal knowledge of Muslims than any other candidate running, due to his personal upbringing. That experience, I think, is uniquely to his advantage in dealing with the Muslim world, which is a critical task facing the next President. And although Obama didn't spend eight years not baking cookies in the White House, it is his personal history that gives him the leg up over "experience." Fareed Zararia agrees:

Obama's argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.

I never thought I'd agree with Obama. I've spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I've got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I've never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I've never written an article that contains the phrase "As an Indian-American ..." or "As a person of color ..."

But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn't an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control.

Informal Yard Sign Poll

We actually didn't see that many presidential campaign yard signs as the LTR and I traversed Southern Illinois and Indiana this past week. In fact the only signs we saw (truly) were for:

Ron Paul. Even saw a few Paul bumper stickers.

The early passion in this election is change. We'll see soon enough if enough people want change bad enough to actually vote for it. I want to feel hopefully, but I'm doubting it.

Noah and Luke

A reader left me a link to this YouTube as a kind of Christmas present (thank you!). Of course, everyone else in the lavender universe has probably heard of Luke and Noah from As the World Turns but I was totally clueless. I still was able to follow along, appreciate whoever put this together, and enjoy the warm fuzziness.

Merry Christmas

From all of us here at Scott's Take -- the LTR, Eli and me.

Dispatch From Illinois

(Blogging by Blackberry)

The LTR and I crossed the Wabash intpo Indiana to hit the closest shopping mall (Eastland Mall in Evansville) to wrap up our Christmas shopping. We also got guest passes at a local gym.

Two things of note:

The guys at the gym were friendly. Not at all the standoffish surliness we encounter often in our home gyms.

The other was the Indiana license plate. The words "In God We Trust" floating over a waving American flag. I had been telling LTR how disturbed I was about the increasing intermingling of government and religious belief. Here was symbolic proof.

The "In Rational Science We Trust" or even "In Mohammad We Trust" was strangley absent.

Sex in the City

For MattyDale:

My Simple Christmas Wish

For you, Dean R.

Top 10 Quotes of the Year

Via Pam.

1. "Don't Tase Me, Bro!"
-- University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on September 17, as he was tased protesting campus police when they tossed him out of a town hall meeting by Sen. John Kerry,

2. "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us."
-- Lauren Upton, South Carolina contestant in the Miss Teen America contest, when asked why one-fifth of Americans are unable to locate the United States on a map.

3. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."
-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's at Columbia University in New York

4. "That's some nappy-headed hos there."
-- Don Imus, referring to the Rutgers University women's basketball team

5. "I don't recall."
-- Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' repeated response to questioning at a congressional hearing about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

6. "There's only three things he (Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11."
-- Sen. Joseph Biden, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate.

7. "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody (Vice President Dick Cheney) who has a 9 percent approval rating."
-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

8. "(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom."
-- Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig's explanation of why his foot touched that of an undercover policeman in a men's room.

9. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
-- Biden describing rival Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

10. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."
-- Former President Jimmy Carter in an interview in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

It's Begining to Look a Lot Like

Bye Bye Electability Argument

Via Chris:

Obama (D) 53%, Romney (R) 35%
Obama (D) 47%, Huckabee (R) 42%
Obama (D) 48%, Giuliani (R) 39%
Obama (D) 47%, McCain (R) 43%
Obama (D) 52%, Thompson (R) 36%

Clinton (D) 46%, Romney (R) 44%
Huckabee (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 43%
Giuliani (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 42%
McCain (R) 49%, Clinton (D) 42%
Clinton (D) 48%, Thompson (R) 42%

Edwards (D) 50%, Romney (R) 38%
Edwards (D) 47%, Huckabee (R) 41%
Giuliani (R) 45%, Edwards (D) 44%
McCain (R) 46%, Edwards (D) 42%
Edwards (D) 51%, Thompson (R) 35%

From a Zogby poll.

My Favorite Christmas Song

On oh so many levels.