The Voice of Treason

Actually, this has been bugging me for a long time. There’s a push for adoption, but some groups are opposed to homosexual couples adopting parentless children. They actually prefer a single heterosexual parent over two homosexual parents.

There are plenty of arguments on both sides of this issue and I can’t say people don’t have valid reasons for their positions. But truthfully, if it were up to me…well, based on what I’ve seen over the years, I don’t see how a single parent is always superior to a gay couple.

As I’ve mentioned, my first job out of college was in a Bay Area bookstore and the majority of my coworkers were homosexual. At the time I thought they were the most dysfunctional group I’d ever encountered in my life. Eventually, though, it occurred to me that my gay coworkers were no more screwed up than my heterosexual coworkers. Their problem was that they were all smart, creative, well-educated people who were stuck in a crappy work situation - overworked and underpaid. And worse, they were in their twenties. Sexual orientation had little to do with their angst. Sex was a problem, orientation was not.

My next job put me in an environment with a lot of older, more settled people. The younger employees regardless of sexual orientation, race, religion, or anything else were screwed up because they were…well, young. The older women liked me so I gravitated away from the younger workers and spent more time with the older ones. And maybe that was because they could go to restaurants and drink. We’d gather for cocktails and after they’d have a few Manhattans the truth would come out.

“I love my kids - really I do. But if I had to do it all over again…”

Their voices would trail off…they’d order another drink. Again, I’d made the decision not to have children on my first day of kindergarten when I was just four. These women convinced me I’d made the right choice. I still stand by my decision to not have them and perhaps one day regret that, instead of having and regretting them. Honestly, I can’t imagine anything worse. So I’m still waiting to regret my decision. And waiting. And waiting. Uh, gee, don’t think it’s gonna happen.

But I understand there are people who genuinely like children and want to be around them and, in many cases, those people aren’t parents. The parents I worked with at the “corporate” job never saw their kids. Both parents worked long hours and stuck the kids in daycare or with their parents. After putting our two dogs in doggie daycare when they were youngsters, I won’t have another dog if I can’t stay home to raise it myself. A parent should be home to raise the puppies. If you let them mix with other dogs unsupervised, they develop these…uh, habits. Habits that cannot be broken, and that’s unpleasant.

So, to make a long story short, I’ve seen dysfunctional relationships and infidelity and unsuitable environments for children with all sorts of people. Straight, gay, married, unmarried, black, white, brown, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, atheist. All this means is that 1) some people just can’t get along with other people and 2) just because some people are capable of breeding, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they should.

I’ve lost touch with Jack over the years and I do regret that. He left the Bay Area even before I did, but before he moved he’d been involved with a woman who had kids. Personally, I would have loved a parent like Jack. He was so wonderfully domestic - happiest when he was wearing an apron, cooking and cleaning. He could sew, bake, garden, decorate - and he was smart and had common sense and a sense of humor. We worked with this woman - and she made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up - but he was willing to “straighten out” for her and her kids. The problem was that she was the wrong woman. But it became abundantly clear that he needed to find someone to settle down with and raise a family. No matter how little money Jack had, he always gave a big portion to his church. He was responsible, had a tremendous work ethic, and could move a refrigerator all by himself. Jack, quite frankly, was excellent parent material.

I don’t know if he ever met the man of his dreams, but I’d hate to think that he isn’t somewhere, living in a shoe, with so many children, knowing exactly what to do. He was great with dogs, too, by the way. That some agency would prefer a single woman like me over a gay man like Jack to adopt a child just gives me the heebie jeebies.

During a particularly arduous game between the Cubs and the Marlins the other day, T turned to me and said I’m starting to remind him of Jack Nicholson in The Pledge. Fine. Ever since we rented Capote, he’s been walking around imitating Truman Capote. He has him down. It’s spooky.

But we were sitting, the two of us, Truman and Jack, and we saw a story on FNC about the Castro District in San Francisco. Couples with children are flocking to the place because the crime rate is low and the schools are good. But issues are arising. Some people are uncomfortable walking down the street with their kids because the little crumb-crunchers might see explicit window displays.

T and I reacted, oddly enough, the same way:

“Too bad!”

“Why did you move there?”

“What did you expect?”

I may lean Conservative, but here’s where I’ll defend the Castro to my death. Are gay couples with children having issues, or is it just the heterosexual couples? If it’s gay couples, then that’s an interesting development and I want to watch how this unfolds. But if it’s just the heterosexual couples…well, excuse me, why did you move to an openly gay neighborhood in the first place? Because it’s a great area, right? Fun, colorful, relatively safe, and diverse. But now that you live there you want it to change? Let’s see. You left suburbia to live someplace more interesting, but now you want it to be suburbia.

It’s like when my mother moved us to Rogers Park. A Jewish neighborhood, safe, good schools. If she had rented an apartment, then complained that everyone around us was Jewish and that they should all become lapsed Catholics like her, what sense would that have made?

I have long had a love-hate relationship with San Francisco, but I have fond memories of the Castro. Jack and I would go on little shopping trips and have lunch, and it really was one area of the city where I felt safe.

“Jack, why are we holding hands?”

“Ever hear of chivalry?”

“Ever hear of the woman on the inside of the sidewalk and the man walking next to the street?”

“Hon, if a car jumps the curb, it’s your ass. And maybe I’m trying to protect you from some of these shops.”

“What - some gay proprietor is going to pull me inside and try to sell me some chaps?”

“You got me.”

It was a pleasant way to spend a day. People were friendly, there was always something unusual to see; if you were looking for a fabulous greeting card or gift wrap or a peculiar refrigerator magnet, Castro Street was the place to be. If you don’t want to see gay men together or see provocative window displays, don’t go there.

I don’t know how many tourist dollars the neighborhood actually generates, but I’d wager it’s enough to make the area invaluable to the city’s economy. People have lived there and worked there for a very long time and they’ve managed to maintain a successful, thriving - and affluent - neighborhood.

What really intrigues me about this story is the parents. I can’t see that these are Red State Christian Conservatives who have moved into the area and are asking people to change their behaviors. So who are these people?

I say, don’t go changin’.

Risky tax scheme…culture of corruption…it’s too soon. Hear it enough and you’ll start believing it. And if I hear “it’s too soon” to see a film like United 93 one more time, my head will explode.

Is it “too soon” to stop showing Katrina footage? We don’t seem to have any issues with running that endlessly. Frankly, a lot of us think that we don’t see 9/11 coverage often enough - and that it’s not accidental.

As far as I’m concerned, Memory of the Camps isn’t shown enough, either. Why isn’t that required material in our government schools? I’d bet there isn’t a high school kid in this town who would know what that was. Shoah? Hiroshima? Show students the footage of the aftermath of an atom bomb. How do you teach history and not teach this?

Some things we should never forget.

I’m old enough to remember when TV stations “signed off” each night to the national anthem. I used to stay up for that. I mean, I knew transmission was winding down and there were no more programs to watch, but I wouldn’t turn off the set. I’d wait for the anthem to end.

If TV stations signed off today instead of running infomercials and B-movies throughout the night, they might consider running footage of planes flying into towers. No soundtrack necessary, no voiceovers. The pictures speak volumes.

Hey, did I just hear a call for abolishing FEMA? The end of a worthless government bureaucracy? YES!!! Today FEMA, tomorrow the IRS!!! Next week, the Department of Education!

This is precisely what America needs! No more excuses! If FEMA can go away, then there’s no excuse not to rid the nation of the IRS and reform our tax system once and for all. This has to be the best news I’ve heard all year. Break out the bubbly! Finally, a smart, common sense decision from our elected officials. I’m marking this day on my calendar. There is hope for our future, after all.

Excuse me? You mean FEMA’s not going away? It’s just going to be replaced by another government bureaucracy? WHAT??? Where’s the logic in that? What’s the point? Why on earth does that make any sense?

Oh…Susan Collins is saying this. I see. Gee, looks like I got all excited for no reason. We’re just going to get another FEMA and call it something else. Hmmm. Gotcha.

Why can’t I stop humming “I’m Beginning To See the Light?” Anyway, has Susan stopped talking yet? Is it safe to turn the TV back on?

(Voters of Maine, what is your plan for abolishing Susan?)

So it’s official: Tony Snow is going to do it. He has one of the coolest jobs in the world; why would he make a move like this? Because these are desperate times and someone has to do it. Also, he just had a brush with Death and has made the decision to do something he feels is important and purposeful. Instead of analyzing and talking about the situation, he’s going to jump in there with the sharks and take action.

How cool is that?

What I like about George Bush is that he understands management: he puts good people in positions of power and allows them to do what needs to be done. And that usually means vast expansion of a job description. I mean, how many times have we heard that Dick Cheney is the most powerful VP in the history of the world? Here’s another example. Tony Snow will change the role of Press Secretary.

I’m looking forward to this. And I’m not going to feel sorry for Tony when the wolves come for him because he knows what he’s in for. I’ll chuckle when critics complain that FNC is the mouthpiece for the administration, and Tony Snow is even more proof of it. I even guffawed this morning when Lanny Davis explained that Tony Snow is a sweetheart and a professional, a man of great integrity, someone who should not be compared to the likes of Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh who are just “hateful” and “venomous.”

Laura Ingraham is hateful and venomous? See, I would have described her as “smart” and “funny as hell.” Ditto - no pun intended - with Rush. Hmmmm. Guess that makes me hateful and venomous. Coolamundo!

A woman stopped me at the post office the other day to ask me how I liked my car. She’d been thinking about buying one, but she wanted to know about mileage. When I went blank she seemed disappointed that I couldn’t tell her how many miles I get per gallon.

I admit that I’ve never kept track. I used to watch my stepfather jot down the mileage on his Texaco charge slip, then add the slip to a thick stack held by a large metal clip. He kept this documentation in the glove compartment. I’ve always meant to do this, but since I’ve been driving since the Carter administration and haven’t yet started, I get the impression that it’s a habit I’ll never develop. He also had a rule about never letting the gas level in the car drop below a quarter tank. Whenever I disobey this law I regret it. It’s good policy. I don’t know if this was something he always did, or just something that grew out of driving during the Carter years. Odd/even days - remember?

I’ve been spending about twenty-five bucks a month on gasoline. I’m not commuting to a job, so I figure I have no business driving around unless I have a very good reason. I may have spent most of my life in California, but I am not a Californian. Driving isn’t natural for me. I do it because I live in the West and if you live in the West you have no choice. Sidewalks haven’t yet been invented in some parts of this region.

I’ve owned only three cars. My brother wanted to unload his ‘74 Mustang II, so I took it to college with me and watched the Pacific air eat through it. After college I needed something more dependable so I bought a 1984 Renault Alliance. The 1983 Renault Alliance was Motor Trend’s Car of the Year, the 1984 model was not. It was, in fact, the final nail in American Motors’ coffin. But I loved that car. So did every mechanic in the Bay Area. It was a smartly designed four-door sedan that drove like a small car, but felt bigger. Loved the interior and visibility.

Fabulous gas mileage. I think I filled up once a month. I had it for sixteen years, then gave it to a coworker whose daughter was just starting to drive. I had about 69,000 miles on it when I bid it a fond adieu. Sure, towing doesn’t rack up a lot of mileage, but it wasn’t just that. I chose to work for a Bay Area company that was one mile from my home. Wherever I live, I find a bank, market, doctor, dentist, veterinarian, and anything else I might need as close to walking distance as I can. In the back of my mind I always think that my car is going to die and I will have to walk to get where I need to be. (I’ve driven a lot of Fords and American Motors cars in my life.)

My coworker had expected to hand over the Alliance to his daughter, but his wife’s car died soon after I gave it to them so she ended up driving it for a few years before they finally had to take it into the woods, tie it to a tree, and shoot it. I bought my current vehicle back in the spring of 1999 - I now have over 40,000 miles on it. That’s a lot for me, but I’ve had longer commutes to work since moving here.

I do not like to commute. I don’t drive unless I really need to, and I arrange all my errands so I don’t waste time or energy driving aimlessly. When housing prices started getting…uh, “laughable” in California, T and I thought long and hard about staying in the Bay Area and buying a house there instead of transferring out here. Friends and coworkers were purchasing homes further and further away from the Bay Area in places like Pleasanton and Livermore where they could actually afford to live. My brother-in-law has been commuting to work in San Jose since the eighties. He and my sister live closer to Modesto than they do San Jose. Uh, check out the map. Me? I couldn’t do it. There’s just no way.

I paid $3.06 per gallon today at Chevron because I’m not willing to sit for an hour or more burning gas, waiting in long lines at Sam’s Club. It reminds me that last Friday was particularly beautiful. Our local afternoon talk radio host got on the air and said that he had to talk himself into coming into the studio because he wanted to stay outside and enjoy the day. Then he asked listeners to call in and tell him their favorite way to spend a day when it’s so amazing outside. As high as gas prices have been and as much as everyone seems to be bitching about them, the majority of callers said that what they like to do most is get in their cars and drive. Each person had a different destination - some near, some pretty far - but not one would give up that favorite drive.

In a couple weeks I’ll be commuting to a campus that’s much further than I want to drive. The instructor has already asked students to consider carpooling because she knows we’ll be spending a small fortune on gas. I don’t look forward to the drive and I don’t look forward to using more gasoline. But I need these classes and this is the campus where they’ll be offered.

I’m not going to complain about the price of gas because I’ve made the choice to consume the product. I need it, I will continue to buy it, and then I’ll look for employment as close to home as possible.

I would hope that my neighbor - who gets into the car and drives halfway down the block to get mail instead of walking to the box - and all those who called in to the radio station last week and described so dreamily how much they love that drive through the mountains, to the lake, or wherever it was that makes their hearts leap with joy, remember their particular driving habits before they start complaining about “Big Oil.”

I’m down to my last pair of contact lenses - today is the day they’re scheduled to be tossed - and my current pair of glasses are…well, let’s just say I know my prescription has changed. I noticed when I was up last week configuring my course schedule at five in the morning that I had to take my glasses off to read. “That’s odd,” I told myself.

I called my eye doctor and made an appointment for an exam. Timing’s bad - I have no insurance - but I also hate being blind. It’s a hazard. I left here at 2:30 for a 3:00 appointment (the office isn’t far from here), so I could look at frames. They were one person short and booked solid. By the time I was out of there and driving home with dilated pupils, it was past 5:30.

I am now considered multi-focal. Yes, that’s right. Multi-focal. I require a corrective lens that allows me to read the issue of National Review that’s in my hand, the computer monitor that I’m sitting in front of, and the road that I’m driving on. Close up, intermediate, and distance.

I hate having a pair of glasses that don’t match my contact lens prescription, so that means I’m going to have to invest in a new pair. The technician was helpful and handed me a stack of rebate offers. I declined. My reasoning is that the offers were good only if I purchased a year’s supply of new contact lenses. My prescription changed dramatically within the last twelve months after years of staying fairly consistent. Who knows what my eyes will be doing six months from now?

And then it occurred to me. This is unfair. People like T who have perfect vision have never had to schedule an eye appointment, undergo those pressure tests, or be dilated. They’ve been spared not only the humiliation and inconvenience, but also the expense of multiple pairs of lenses and glasses - not to mention the cost of solution and everything else associated with being myopic.

Where’s my freaking tax break? Where’s my government program? Where’s my helping hand from Uncle Sam? If I don’t have these lenses, I’m handicapped. I can’t drive, I can’t work, I can’t shop and contribute to the economy…and that includes Italy’s economy, too. (Although the frames I’m considering this time are not made there. Maybe they’ll vote in a conservative next time I’m frame shopping.)

But you see my point. And what about those of us who have diabetic dogs? Medicare covers insulin and syringes for humans, but who covers prescriptions for dogs? Ever try to get them from a discount mail-order company? Suddenly your vet is Michael Corleone - you don’t want to even mention you’re considering PetMeds.

“Fine. You can buy your prescriptions from them. Take your chances on their quality. Risk the life of your pet. It’s a free country, after all. But don’t depend on our protection anymore. We won’t have your prescription for you. We don’t deal with those people. Understand, it’s not personal. It’s strictly business.”

Between the marathon eye exam and the diabetic dog dropping low and doing St. Vitus’ dance in the hearth room tonight, I totally spaced 24. Can someone tell me what the hell happened?

Some say the best way to learn about life and death is to set up a fish tank. One day you go to feed your White Cloud Mountain Minnows and you can’t find them (What? Did they step out for a little air?), and then you see your albino channel cats - Manny, Moe, and Jack - at the bottom of the tank, looking somewhat rounder, and smiling big catfish smiles. And there’s your loach, Archibald, and it looks like he’s getting fuzzy again. Time to break out the iodine. Oh, dear. And who’s that floating upside down today?

Then there’s gardening. Yesterday was Earth Day and I decided to spend it by using as little energy as possible. I watched bees. And birds. Lizards. Squirrels. And rabbits. The usual suspects. On one side of the yard is an enormous rosemary; on the other, a Purple Robe locust. T and I stood under the locust and listened to the humming, watching the bees inside the exotic blossoms that - from a distance — look like clusters of grapes. Then we went to the rosemary to watch. They say there’s a shortage of bees. It’s possible: I think it’s because they’re all in my backyard.

The first hummingbird of the season showed up yesterday. He - or she - is the one who likes to sit at the top of the slope and balance on the highest point of the golden rain tree and watch all the activity. Once the chitalpas and hummingbird bushes open up, I’ll be able to play with the hummers again. They like to help me water the yard.

I’ve counted eighteen trees in the back now; if I remember correctly, at least ten others died. A lot of that was because of a gopher - others expired because of planting issues. It appears that larger trees, professionally planted, didn’t do as well as the younger ones that we put in the ground ourselves. More lessons learned.

I miss the nursery that used to be down the street. I would have gone there this year to buy more verbena, but I ended up somewhere else and bought geraniums instead. An interesting lesson, too, about life and death. We’ve been getting mail from another nursery asking us to consider them now that the other has closed. Smart marketing. And in today’s paper there was an article in the business section about all the new nurseries that have opened or expanded since the old one closed. Some of their employees took their experience and started their own businesses. Each new operation specializes in something different. This is an interesting development.

Meanwhile, the bees are still buzzing, the squirrels are on the wall battling over apples and carrots, the robins are demanding fresh water in the birdbath, and the hummers are waiting for more blossoms to open. Important stuff.

If someone had told me that my mother would be alive at age 82 I would never have believed it. All through my childhood she regularly told us she was dying, and when I was in college, she was hospitalized when an enormous tumor was discovered in her uterus. She survived, her uterus did not. Hmmmm. Forty years too late.

My mother’s mother died in ‘32, her father died in ‘62, my father died in ‘70, my stepfather died in ‘81 (on my mother’s birthday to be exact), my sister died in ‘03, and my mother’s brothers and sisters - close to a dozen of them - are all dead now, too. As another sister has pointed out: “There’s a pattern here.”

I was visiting her to a) cut her hair (I can’t take her to a professional anymore - she has no bladder control), b) deliver her sack of prescriptions, and c) collect her wet, smelly clothes. I filled a large plastic bag.

“Is that all my laundry? How do I dirty all those clothes? Where do I go?”

“In your pants. That’s where you go.”

“Oh. Are you cooking dinner tonight?”

“If I want to eat, yes, probably.”

“Sausage and peppers sounds good.” She asked about my sister Linda. “How’s Linda?”

“She’s still dead.”

“Oh. Are you cooking dinner tonight? Sausage and peppers sounds good.”

After my sister died, my other sister took my mother to her house. It didn’t last long. “I have children,” my sister explained. “I don’t want to die. You don’t have children, so you should take her.”

True, she has children. Adult children, but why nitpick? But I see her point. She has a reason to live. When she’s senile and pissing herself, chances are, one of those kids will take on the responsibility of caretaking.

Caretaking. An interesting concept, really. Studies show that a lot of caretakers die, while the person with the illness lives on. Why is that? Well, it’s obvious, really. And that’s what has me intrigued. I’ve always been interested in germs, flesh-eating bacteria, spontaneous human combustion, hydrophobia, bubonic plague, Creuzdtfelt-Jacob disease - all sorts of things that ravage a human being.

But recently I’ve become even more interested in how illness affects not just the victim, but rather the “victims” around the victim. It’s why I’ve decided to go back to school and pursue a degree in a field that is going to require all the courses I didn’t take for my other degree, like Algebra, Chemistry, Physiology. At 17, I wanted to be a veterinarian. A person asked me what I’d do if someone brought me a dog that had been hit by a car, and when I said that I would scream, run out of the room, and call a vet, I knew the job wasn’t for me.

But time has passed and I’ve seen a lot of life. And death. I can do this now. I figure I don’t have children to assume the burden, but if my heart should explode or I have a stroke, chances are I’ll be at work in a hospital, and eventually someone there will address the issue.

I heard the other day that in the event of a bird flu pandemic, 46% of healthcare workers said they wouldn’t show up to work because they have families. Fine. I don’t. Give me their f*cking paychecks - I’ll be there with bells on.

“As you all know, China has, since the late 1970s, gone through major transformations in the process of reform and opening up. In the years to come, China will continue to make economic development a top priority, press ahead with the reform and the opening up program, promote its modernization drive, and endeavor to make life better for its 1.3 billion people.”

– Hu Jintao, 4/20/06

And then Hu quoted Du Fu, the Chinese poet: “Climb up to the summit and see the mountains around and below are we.” But it was probably difficult to hear anything he was saying because of the screaming protester. What a pair of lungs! Well, that’s democracy for you.

A few awkward moments. First, the White House didn’t exactly roll out the big red - no pun intended - carpet. No state dinner - just lunch. Then the Falun Gong protesters. And the little matter of the playing of the national anthems. Before the anthems, a White House announcer referred to China as the “Republic of China.” Uh, actually that would be Taiwan. But a nice reminder that we shouldn’t forget our friends there. (Is it true we played the anthem of the Republic of China, and not the People’s Republic? Nah, can’t be.) A faux pas here, a faux pas there - it doesn’t matter because no one in the People’s Republic got to see them. And it’s not like they can go online for info after the TV signal goes blooey. Well, that’s Communism for you.

Anyway, I think it’s all well and good to have a relationship with China, but I urge a review of the Cultural Revolution. If it’s been a while since you’ve studied it, go back a read a little bit as a refresher.

Spiders and snakes don’t scare me. Wild animals and earthquakes don’t scare me. Horror films and roller coasters don’t scare me. The Cultural Revolution scares the crap out of me.

Jiang Ching, Lin Biao, the Gang of Four…great oogily googily boogily boo!!! I see a picture of Madame Mao and my blood runs cold. Tiny hairs stand up all over my body. My heart pounds. It’s hard to breathe. It’s kinda like…well, it’s kinda like when I see Hillary.

There is a slight resemblance. And I’m not just talkin’ physical.