Grumpy Smurf has an Ice Dam

One of my favorite books from kidhood is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. On the first page, Alexander explains:

I went to bed with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

The book proceeds accordingly with Alexander recalling all of his woes and intermittently threatening to move to Australia.

So far, today has been kinda like that. It is only 2pm, so I am wary of making any grand claims that the Universe could take as a challenge to up the ante and make things worse. Lots worse.

I wasn't in a bad mood when I woke up. But Rhonda was. It started innocently enough: I made a joke that she didn't think was funny; I was more awake than she was; I was banished to the downstairs where I began to clean up a helluva mess left over from yesterday's cookie-baking session. Once R emerged from the upstairs, it was clear that the clouds were not lifting. I tried to offer solutions, but kept making things worse. So, after a few failed attempts at enjoying the morning, we both decided it would be best to just get to work. Clean up the house, get ready for the week, finalize some class plans.

Once I got to my desk, I began settling in to a day of work mixed with an appropriate amount of digital entertainment interspersed. Okay, I thought. This isn't so bad. I can hang out in my office, work on some stuff, watch some stuff, so and and so forth. About two minutes into this reverie I started to hear a noise. A soft but persistent "plop" every five or ten seconds. I looked up. Saw nothing. I listened. Heard it again. I looked up and left, and I stood up, reaching over to the corner of my desk when I began to holler "OH SHIT! The roof is leaking onto my desk. RHONDA COME QUICK! The roof is leaking. We have an ICE DAM! ICE DAM! ICE DAM!"

The next few minutes were pure motion with some cursing thrown in for fun. We had to quickly move all of my computer equipment, books, papers to dry ground. There was much running around and - at the high point - Buddy responded to our fervor with some barking.

Fast forward four hours. I am now sitting four feet to the left of my desk at a small makeshift table-desk. The dripping continues as we await the arrival of our gallant friend/superhero David who actually owns a ladder long enough to reach our roof. In the meantime, we spent some time walking from neighbor to neighbor inquiring about 25 foot ladders. "Good morning. I know it is the Sabbath, and we are your new lesbian neighbors, but do you have a ladder we could borrow?" Sadly we are the tallest house on the street and no one else seems to need a ginourmous ladder with which they can climb up to the icy rooftoop and begin to melt away the ice that, when thick enough, prevents melting snow from running off of the roof and, instead, encourages it to seep into the roof, through the attic, and right onto my laser printer.

Hallelujah! We're moving to Australia!

Best of East Coast Retrospective

Decided to condense this entry of photos from our winter break on the East Coast
(no offense to any of the removed subjects!)



shadows of 30th street
philadelphia, pa



Gaby in the bakery (old ladies ooh and
aah over a baby)
ny, ny



a sunny, sunny day
newport news, va



gabriel - learning about my peoples
philly

Frigid

It was minus 11 degrees when we woke up this morning. Right now it is minus two. Some questions that come to mind:

• The weather forecast online designated today and tomorrow as "frigid." Is there a corresponding numeric index that defines frigid?
  

• Even though the house is always the same temperature (63 during the day, 65 in the evening, 55 at night) it feels colder in the house today. Is it just psychological?

• At what point do outdoor temperatures becomes so dangerous that everyone should stay inside? Will someone make an announcement when this happens?

• What are all the birds and deer and other animals doing right now? Do we need to let them sleep in the basement like we did with our outside dog on cold nights when I was a kid?

• Everyone is talking about the big game tomorrow... I am not so much worried about the players (who will be running around, watched by trainers, etc.) but what about the 40 thousand people in the stands who will be sitting and standing in one place for the entire game?

• Is it possible for my dog's pee to freeze upon contact with cold air, thus creating pee-sicles?

Friends of Dorothy

Several months ago my mother and grandmother kinda accidentally ended up at a gay pride event in Rehoboth Beach. My mom and I both -- and in different ways -- thought the story was very funny. My favorite part was when she described coming across a booth with t-shirts, some of which read "Friends of Dorothy." My mom then turned to her mother, Dorothy, and asked "so, what do you think THAT means?"

In a ridiculous train of thought that only the attention deficient could appreciate, this story came back to me as I thought about the past three weeks of visiting family and friends. After 25 days away, we finally returned to casa lesbinger (still looking for a good home/farm/estate name!) yesterday afternoon.

While away, Rhonda and I got to spend lots of time with our families -- together and apart -- and I finally got to meet and spend time with her niece and nephew. This was no small thing: it has been a number of years since Rhonda came out to her family and, until this Christmas, I had only met her sister and family once. Distance (us in Seattle and them in Virginia), adjustments (they being quite Christian) and timing meant that I had never spent time with the whole family before. It was a really big deal (to me and for Rhonda as well) that I was welcomed and included in their family Christmas celebrations. I finally got to play and talk with those kids whose photos have been gracing our refrigerator for years.

One night when we all went out to dinner together, I had this strange moment of feeling a part of Rhonda's family. There was also realization of the multiple ways in which the "family" sitting around the table was quite amazing. Rhonda's family is white, and her brother-in-law is Chinese-American, and the kids are bi-racial (duh!). As we sat around the table in our queer, multi-racial formation, it struck me that this family assembled here was very different from what Rhonda's parents could have imagined for their future when they were the parents of two young girls. And yet, there we were. together. connected to each other.

This all comes back around for me with the idea of Dorothy -- as in Wizard of Oz -- as a gay icon because she is the de facto queen of a group of rag-tag characters ( who feel out of place because of a lack of courage, heart, and brains). Dorothy is the glue that creates "family" in unlikely circumstances; she is the one who extends the boundaries of norms and acceptance.

I appreciate all of the various formations of my queer (literally and figuratively, of course) families and the ways in which the lives of those around me make me feel at home.

how i got the job

we are in brooklyn visiting Hollis, Maggie, and Jane. we walked their dog to Prospect Park this morning where there are off-leash hours until 9am; there were more dogs in that park than students on the UW-Marinette campus. There are more restaurants on this block in Brooklyn than in the 2-3 mile radius around our house. (There are also oodles of non-white and/or non-straight people. Crazy!) This morning, Rhonda saw a squirrel run by the window with a styrofoam cup in its mouth, and she responded by shaking her head and saying "it is just not right. Just not right."

we are enjoying good company and good food. At the same time, the time to return to our midwestern homestead is nearing, and I am appreciative of this fact. It has been good to get away from life-as-we-now-know-it, and it will also be quite good to return to our new home.

Hollis made me dig up this video I made last year as I was preparing for the job market. please accept it as a token of my utter lack of sanity and as an insight into how I landed myself a gig as an english prof.