Give a Little, Take a Little

Alright, kiddies, I am off to my equivalent of Paradise Island. That’s assuming that the invisible jet can navigate through these snowstorms. Transparent wings don’t really take to chemical de-icer. I am not sayin', I am just sayin'.

Before departing, though, I thought that I would once again help you all decipher the hidden messages behind gifting this year. Okay, a couple are recycled – But they are as true now as ever!

And that truth can be as disillusioning as my discovery that egg nog is now manufactured with that nasty high fructose corn syrup. Oh, agribusiness, is there nothing you won't ruin?

Here is a list of gifts, what the giver meant by giving them, and what the receiver thinks upon getting each:

The Gift: A copy of Going Rogue.

What the Giver Meant: I have a perverted sense of humor.

What the Receiver Thinks: Oh, I can use this. My coffee table is a little wobbly because of that short leg.





***

The Gift: A complete set of the Twilight saga.

What the Giver Meant: Sex will only bring heartache, despair, and pain – So don’t do it!

What the Receiver Thinks: I will develop a kinky S&M obsession involving fangs.

***

The Gift: A complete set of True Blood on DVD.

What the Giver Meant: Buying porn seemed too obvious.

What the Receiver Thinks: Was the store out of porn?

***

The Gift: Antique Dishes

What the Giver Meant: My dishmania has reached the level that I can only justify things to myself if I buy them for other people.

What the Receiver Thinks: These better be dishwasher safe.



***

The Gift: Diamonds!

What the Giver Meant: I am trying to buy your love.

What the Receiver Thinks: I wonder how many children suffered digging these out of the ground. . .



***

The Gift: A Bible.

What The Giver Meant: You should remember the real reason for the season.

What The Receiver Thinks: When will this sanctimonious asshole get out of my house?

***

The Gift: A blank, white coffee mug.

What the Giver Meant: I panicked at the local CVS.

What the Receiver Thinks: Was the CVS out of Bourbon this year?

***

The Gift: A basic textbook on macroeconomics.

What the Giver Meant: You are the most crooked, creepy, incompetent Treasury Secretary this nation has ever had.

What the Receiver Thinks: Macro-what now?


***

The Gift: An all expense paid vacation to a beach resort.

What the Giver Meant: I am trying to buy your love.

What the Receiver Thinks: Maybe once I get there I can ditch you at the beach.

***

The Gift: An electric quesadilla maker.

What the Giver Meant: Quesadillas are delicious.

What the Receiver Thinks: Oh, something that I will use once and then abandon in my cupboard forever.

***

The Gift: Egg nog with high fructose corn syrup.

What the Giver Meant: I give the gift of diabetes.

What the Receiver Thinks: Why do you hate me?



***

The Gift: Stock in GM.

What the Giver Meant: It’s bound to come back!

What the Receiver Thinks: Did this gift come free with a full tank of gas?

***

The Gift: An Apple Computer.

What the Giver Meant: Now you can be as smug as I am!

What the Receiver Thinks: This person has confused capitalist brand identification with actual liberation.

***

The Gift: A Windows-based PC.

What the Giver Meant: This new operating system is bound to be better than Vista!

What the Receiver Thinks: Oh, I can use this. My coffee table is a little wobbly because of that short leg.


***


The Gift: Guitar Hero - Van Halen.

What the Giver Meant: You never let go of the eighties.

What the Receiver Thinks: Sigh – I wish that I still had enough hair to be part of a hair band.

***

The Gift: A new car!

What the Giver Meant: I am trying to buy your love.

What the Receiver Thinks: I love you.


***

The Gift: Wonder Woman comics, books, or dolls.

What the Giver Meant: Wonder Woman is the alpha and the omega.

What the Receiver Thinks: Your personal obsessions make me uncomfortable.


***

The Gift: Baked goods.

What the Giver Meant: I learned in childhood to show my love through food.

What the Receiver Thinks: If this person loves me much more, I won’t be able to fit into any of my clothes by the new year.

***

The Gift: A healthcare plan that mandates coverage to 30 million new people.

What the Giver Meant: I sorta wanted reform, but didn’t want to bother with all that work of dismantling private insurance companies.

What the Receiver Thinks: Insurance companies will be even richer now!

***

The Gift: Liquor

What the Giver Meant: I think that you are an alcoholic.

What the Receiver Thinks: Give me, give me, give me.



***

The Gift: A Promise to Have a “Special” Christmas Together – on December 26.

What the Giver Meant: I am really married to somebody else – with kids. If queer, however, it could also mean that I still haven’t told my parents that I am gay.

What the Receiver Thinks: Man, I have made poor life choices and am in denial about the viability of this relationship.

Have a happy and safe nonsectarian, nondenominational winter holiday!

Death Comes to the Arch-GayProf

Okay, maybe not literally death. Still, this past week I have battled strep throat. It might not have been the most ill I have ever been in my life (that would be an e-coli infection I once had), but it was still quite unpleasant.

Sometime last Saturday, the swelling got to the point that I felt like I was choking on my own throat. My tonsils grew to the size of robin eggs. I don't mean the bird, either, I mean Burt Ward.

Before this, I didn’t even know where my tonsils were. I always thought tonsils were some mythical invention created as a plot device for television shows like The Brady Bunch. It turns out they are real and they react badly when infected with bacteria. Even with antibiotics, my body has taken ten days to fight off the infection.

Of course, this was perfect timing for work on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Why not lose several precious days to make really sure that it is never ending? Then again, the pain and fever kinda made the NERPD seem like a low priority.

Something else about strep? I couldn’t sleep – at all. The pain was too severe. This left me looking to sweet, sweet television to soothe the pain. Let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing on at three in the morning, except the occasional rerun of Roseanne and infomercials for “magic” towels that soak up twice their weight in water. I think that I might have ordered two in a fit of fever.

Falling asleep worried me anyway because I feared that my throat would swell shut and then I would die. Being on the macabre side, I then wondered what my obituary would look like. I am pretty sure it would be along the lines of this:

GayProf, the most desirable man on the blogosphere, died of a super strain of throat-eating bacteria yesterday in his cottage in Midwestern Funky Town. He was thirty-three – the same age as Jesus when he died. Many people are already drawing the parallels.



GayProf was unsuccessfully treated by doctors with a round of antibiotics, proving his parents’ proclamations from his childhood that doctors didn’t do anything and weren’t worth the waste of money. It is said that he had only visited a doctor’s office around a dozen times in his entire life.

In recent months, GayProf lived in quasi-seclusion as he worked on the brilliant, but unfinished, Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Some people suggested that his blog, the vehicle of his tremendous fame and popularity, had suffered as a result. A few even stated flatly that he should really “pull the plug” on it. “What CoG needs,” one friend recently told him, “is a bullet.” He probably feels very guilty for that now.

Although he was one of the most adored bloggers (among those who were gay, male, part-Latino, and a professor), he was a shy and unassuming presence in real life (though still really glamorous). Many people considered him the intellectual and spiritual leader of our nation. Others thought he was just some goofball guy who liked Wonder Woman a little too much. Whatever the case, he is dead now.

The nation is in shock and mourning. "I never expected that he could die," one citizen exclaimed, "Or, if he was going to die, I thought it would be from TaB related cancer."



Not much is known about GayProf’s early life, except stories about his birth and upbringing in his beloved New Mexico. Those who knew him best said that he gave a prayer each morning thanking the goddess that he was not be born anywhere else in the U.S.

Untangling the myths from the reality for the early part of his adult life has vexed tabloids and biographers for decades. Most accounts suggest that the people of New Mexico decided to send an emissary to the rest of the U.S. to teach them their superior ways of being and knowing. After an exhausting athletic competition, GayProf became that emissary. A less realistic story states that he simply decided to attend graduate school.

Whatever the case, he worked hard in his role as emissary, often living in the most conservative and backwards parts of the nation as a sort of reverse-missionary. At the tender age of 21, he entered graduate school. It was his first challenge in this new role. GayProf (then fighting injustice as GayGradStudent) was unexpectedly surrounded by ultra-conservative white evangelicals. Coincidentally, GayProf was frequently seen with his best friend in the town’s local bars trying to quash out the pain of it all.

GayProf’s biggest challenge, however, appeared when he accepted a job in the dreaded state of Texas. Never before had GayProf witnessed such extreme and blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, gluttony, and meanness as the people of Texas provided. “Never trust a state that assassinated a president,” GayProf often stated.

It was during that pivotal moment that GayProf took his message of peace, love, and sensible shoes to the global internet. He covered a wide-ranging array of topics, including gay porn, Charlie's Angels, racism in popular culture, Charlie's Angels, misogyny, and circumcision (and occasionally a post on Charlie's Angels).

GayProf's real identity became the subject of much speculation. Many people even theorized that there was not a single "GayProf." Instead, they imagined that there was an entire legion of GayProfs who all contributed to the brilliant blog. Well, until people actually thought two seconds about it. I mean, how many gay, Latino professors are there in the world? His "secret" identity was kinda obvious and maybe even a bit lame.

Fame brought attention. An avalanche of articles and television programs obsessively followed GayProf’s fashion choices, his tastes in art, music and literature, and his thoughts on politics and history. A few complained that GayProf wore his sexuality on his sleeve, literally:



In private, though, GayProf had become exhausted fighting losing battles to make Texas civil. He found reprieve at an institute in the Boston area. Though only there for one year, news of his death has crippled the historic city. Plans are already underway to change the name of Beacon Hill to GayProf Hill. “Our city was founded to be an example of the best in human endeavor – to be a beacon for all others to emulate,” one Bostonian stated, “If GayProf didn’t embody that spirit, I don’t know who did – or who could.”

Unwilling to return to the cesspool-state of Texas once his year in Boston was up, GayProf took a new position in the more laid-back atmosphere of Big Midwestern University at Midwestern Funky Town. For the first time in his academic career, he found a somewhat serene environment to explore historical questions. “What I remember most about GayProf,” one colleague stated, “was that he really knew how to make a cocktail. I mean, did he have a drinking problem? Totally – But it was like drinking heaven when he pulled out his shaker – and he was a good bartender, too.”



In his final days, former students had gathered on the lawn of his modest cottage burning candles and singing songs of praise. “GayProf was a certain type of professor,” one crying student confided, “You weren’t necessarily in love with him when you were actually in his class -- and his star-spangled short-shorts took some time getting used to. He also made you do a lot of work. Given that so many of us are lazy and feel entitled, this frequently created resentment. As time went by, though, you realized that he was the best you would ever have. Who will take care of us now?” The news of his death resulted in large scale rioting across the campus and the burning of several classroom buildings.

GayProf, however, was not free of controversy. Anonymous commentators on his blog frequently left poorly worded and ill-conceived complaints.

Some others remarked that his trademark goatee left him hopelessly trapped in the nineties. Still others feared GayProf’s unhealthy and dark obsessions. “Why does he have so many dishes?” an anonymous critic told this reporter two years ago, “I mean, do you really need a separate luncheon set from the 1940s and a dinner set from the 1960s? It just isn’t natural.” Today, those critics are undoubtedly burning with shame.



GayProf kept a modest and chaste personal life. It was said that he never bedded anyone before really knowing him. Well, at least until he knew his name.

GayProf is survived by his cat, who may or may not have been gnawing on his corpse when discovered by police. His body is in state at the round-capitol building in New Mexico, draped in the familiar red and yellow flag of that sacred place. Canonization proceedings are expected to start sometime next year.

Making the Nine

Time is slipping past me rather rapidly. Breaking my series of “nines” in the month of September, however, seemed like a bad omen. So, I’ll just jot down a few things. Besides, the blogosphere is so empty without me.

This past weekend I had a small cocktail gathering. Two major things occurred to me. First, I ran out of cocktail glasses about midway through the evening. Even though I have eight, my first thought was, “I must buy more.” This, I believe, is a symptom of my dish mania. What am I hoping to do? Accumulate enough stemware to open a bar? How much larger am I imagining future cocktail parties will get? If not all of my guests end up with the perfect glass, it’s no big deal. Right? Of course!

Well, that is what I said until one of the other cocktail glasses broke. Then I took it as a sign from God that I must purchase more. I am very religious like that. God is always giving me messages that I should shop more. Who am I do to argue with the will of God?

The other thing that happened was that I had been battling a swarm of never-dying bees that have built a nest in between the siding on my little cottage. I have called out a professional exterminator twice to kill the little bastards. Yet, they just won’t die. Now they are burrowing into the inside. On Saturday, I killed twenty of them who made their way indoors. As I frantically participated in a bee mass-execution in the hours before the party started, I had very grave visions that they would swarm over my guests. That probably wouldn't win me any awards as host.

Part of the problem is that the exterminator seems a little conservative in her application of poisons. She has expressed concern for spraying the whole house because of Cat. While I appreciate that, I actually think that the bees are the greater danger. I mean, the chances of Cat dragging his tongue along the baseboards are fairly slim. Meanwhile, the chances of him deciding that the bees are a new plaything are very high. Coming home and potentially finding a bee-stung kitty makes me quite anxious.

To deal with the problem on Saturday, I purchased some spray that I used myself along the windows and baseboards. This only reminded me that I am fairly sensitive about killing things. Trust me, I want the bees gone. Still, I feel bad about killing insects. I mean, they are important to the environment. They pollinate the plants and stuff. Bee vomit is delicious. Who am I to disrupt the cycle of life? What if one of the little bee larvae that I sprayed now would have grown up one day to cure bee cancer?

Waking up in the morning and finding the floor strewn with dead and dying bees seemed grim. Actually, it was just dying bees that bothered me. Maybe I just want them dead, but not suffering. I half expected to see a tiny bee Scarlett roaming around the dying bees looking for a bee doctor.

This made me want to learn more about bees. Well, by “learn more,” I don't mean that I wanted to do actual research or anything that required, you know, work. So, I turned to my old friend, Professor Internet.

Here are some things that I learned about bees:

Bees are decedents of wasps.

Bees are also related to ants.

It is likely that the “bees” in my house are really wasps (which makes me oddly feel better about killing them. After all, we all know that wasps are the mafia thugs of the insect world. They wouldn't hesitate to kill us.).

There are 130 different kinds of bees, wasps, and hornets in the continental U.S.

The honey bee is the state insect of Utah.

Apparently the Utah legislature has a lot of time on its hands if it’s naming state insects.

Dodge produced the famed muscle car the “Super Bee” between 1968 and 1971.



The popular (and now shockingly overpriced) motor scooter's name "Vespa" means "Wasp" in both Latin and Italian.

Saint Bee, according to the Catholic Church, lived between 615 and 693 CE. She founded several churches and built a convent in Belgium.

Spelling bees are not widely practiced outside of the U.S.

Bee is a brand of playing cards in the U.S.

The majority of bee species produce almost no honey.

California has three “bee-titled” newspapers: The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee, and The Modesto Bee.

Samantha Bee, a regular correspondent for The Daily Show, was born in Toronto Ontario, Canada. She was the first non-U.S. citizen to be a regular on-air correspondent for the show.

A “bee” was a term used widely in the eighteenth and nineteenth century to describe activities that required community involvement (e.g. Quilting Bee, Husking Bee, Orgy Bee. Okay, maybe I made up that last one. They just called them orgies.)

Bees are strictly vegetarian. Wasps, on the other hand, digest meat to feed their larvae.

Bea Arthur was born in May, 1922. She is a Taurus.



Reading about wasps and bees creeps me out. I am also now totally convinced that both I and my cat will soon perish and then be served to wasp larvae as hamburger.

Starting Over. . . Again

Rain finally came to Midwestern Funky Town. Since moving here last week, it has been ungodly hot. It was more Midwestern Melting Town than Midwestern Funky Town. Let me tell you, I didn’t move to a place where the state flower is an icicle just so that I could spend my days sweating.

If I am talking about the weather, that also means that not much is really happening in my life. Sure, I am super busy. Boxes are being unpacked, organizing is being done, and work on the never-ending-research-project of doom is proceeding. None of that, though, makes particularly scintillating blog reading. It’s not as if I am going to discover a hunky naked man in one of those boxes. Nor is it likely that we would then have hot, hot monkey sex upon that discovery. After all, I have all my hunky naked men shipped via UPS.

So, given that I don’t have enough energy/ambition to create a coherent post, I will cobble together an entry from several thoughts that I have had over the past week:

*Starting over seems like a slow process. One also has to get acclimated, clean, connect utilities, and update all those online profiles. These things take even more time when there is only one of you in the move. After all, there are certain contents in a household that remain the same whether there are one, two, or four individuals in the unit. Everybody needs cookware. Everybody needs towels, etc. When there is only one of you, it takes that much longer to unpack all of that crap.

*Starting over also requires a lot of emotional energy. No matter the circumstances, there is something viscerally unsettling about suddenly living in a new place. Still, if Jesus has the power to rise up from the dead and take to the sky, then so do I.

*In all of my unpacking, I have concluded that I own way too many books and way too many dishes. At least I can justify the former (somewhat) by the fact that I am a professor. The latter, though, is seriously out of control. I am volunteering myself to the American Psychological Association as a case study to update the DSM with a new diagnosis of "Dish Mania." Why – WHY – do I need four sets of dishes? Three of those sets are seventy years old – the other forty years old. Why? Why? Why?

Do I seriously think that Fergie and her posse are going to drop by at any moment and will require massive catering? And, let’s be honest, if Fergie and her posse did drop by, I would use paper plates. This whole dish thing is out of hand. I need help.



*Unpacking those dishes was slowed by placing shelf-liner in all of my new cabinets. To be honest, I have never really seen the purpose of shelf-liner. Before she left, though, my sister and I went shopping for household items needed in a new place. When I informed her that I didn’t really plan to line my shelves, she looked horrified. As a result, I dutifully bought several rolls of the stuff. Seriously, though, why do I need this? Does it protect the dishes from the shelves? Does it protect the shelves from the dishes? Why is there such an antagonistic relationship between the two that they need a neutral zone of paper?

*Beyond unpacking, watching ancient t.v. shows, and starring blindly at a text that needs revising, I have also poked around the town a bit. Yesterday, I went out to search for a birthday gift for my other sister (Yes, there is another). She is a Leo (which fits her perfectly).

I decided that the funky downtown of Midwestern Funky Town would be an ideal place to find a funky gift.While wandering around, I discovered that every shop, regardless of its actual contents, was a “gallery.” If there was a 7-11, it would have been renamed the “Big Gulp and Slurpee^© Gallery.”

It seems to me if you are selling a vinyl LP that has been melted into a chip and dip bowl, you have forfeited your option of claiming “gallery” status. Don't get me wrong. I understand the quaint appeal of the item, but it's not really a "gallery piece."

Trust me, they weren’t selling this item with a sense of Andy-Warhol irony either. Midwestern Funky Town is not that funky – yet.

*I am in a major hurry to get the Texas license plates off of my car. I don’t want anybody in Midwestern Funky Town mistaking my unfortunate tags with an endorsement of that state’s atrocious politics.

*When I get those new plates (Monday – probably), I want the traditional blue plates of my new state. I hate all of these novelty plates that every state keeps issuing. What is with pasting lighthouses, sunsets, or boats all over vehicle tags? It’s a means of identification not an ad for freshness.

Yeah, I know a lot of these plates represent a minor donation to some worthy cause. This leads to its own absurdities, though. Like the idiot who drives a giant pickup truck but has the nerve to buy a “wildlife” plate. Clearly he reasons that forking over an extra ten bucks a year is going to undo the eco-damage of his four-miles-per gallon gas milage. It’s a little like Dick Cheney suddenly sporting a peace button on his lapel. Sure, the message is great, but it’s a little hollow when it’s resting on somebody slightly to the right of Kaiser Wilhelm.



*Meeting my new colleagues at Big Midwestern University certainly contrasts with my first weeks in Texas those many years ago. It’s great to have so many people interested in the history of race, gender, and sexuality all in one place. They seem happy to have added me to the faculty and have really gone out of their way to make me feel welcome.

I can’t say that this will last my entire time in MFT, but it sure is different than my Texas institution already. During my first week in Texas, in contrast, several senior colleagues came by my office to inform me that a) They didn’t want to hire anybody in Latino studies but were overruled by higher ups b) they didn’t think that Latino Studies was a legitimate historical discipline (too regional, don’t you know?) c) they really, really didn’t think that sexuality studies was a legitimate field of inquiry (too “trendy”) and d) they hoped that I didn’t take any of that personally, but thought I “should know.” Still.Not.Over.It.

*Before leaving Boston, I finished reading the latest Harry Potter book. There are some things to say about it, but I will wait to write about it until it is out of date no longer topical won’t be a source of spoilers for those who haven’t finished. What I can say is that it was an adequate book that answered most of the questions raised by the other books. Overall, though, it took a bit of the magic out of the series for me (especially the dreadful last chapter). I suppose, though, she didn’t write it for me.

*Moving still sucks.