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Living Out

March 21, 2013
Why Get Married?

The last time you tried to explain why you support marriage equality, did you mention civil rights? Justice? Equal access to benefits? Did you call it “gay marriage?”

Wrong, wrong, wrong and waay wrong! Who knew?

I always thought the “liberty and justice for all” argument was a pretty good one. I mean our Constitution does guarantee equal justice under the law. But we can talk about equal rights and justice till we’re lavender-blue in the face — it just turns people off. At least the still-undecided voters. Dang.

January 17, 2013
Let Them Eat Cake

The doorbell rang. I was grating an organic beet for our dinner salad, which we’d have as soon as Wifey got home from yoga. Ding-dong. A quick rinse swirled magenta beet juice down the sink. 

Dish towel in hand, I raced to the door. Sometimes the neighborhood tamale maker has her bilingual kid ask if I want to buy any, which I never do because we’re corn and gluten free. “Hello?” I called into the dark. A UPS truck drove away.

December 20, 2012
Queering It Quandary

My fitness class lets me tune out life’s chaos and tune in to my body. Like me, the other women here focus on the workout, all of us sweating and grunting to the beat. Our group ranges from new moms to long-time widows, and all ages in between. A lot of us, like me, are in our 60s. As far as I know, I’m the only homo. But you wouldn’t know that to look at us. Except for a few ponytails and pinned-back buns, everyone has pretty much the same short haircut. Dykey. I fit right in.

October 3, 2012
Hole Lotta Love

Wifey biked home from work at her usual time, in the heat of a late summer afternoon. The screen door creaked. “Hi Honey, I’m homo!”

“Hullo, mine dahlink,” I finished washing dishes and grabbed a towel.

“How ya doin’ Shweetie Pie?” Keys jingled into their basket, her daypack plopped into a chair. 

She sure looked cute all sweaty and flushed, hair bent into yet another creative rendition of helmet head. 

September 19, 2012
Getting It On My Chest

I’m in the locker room, drying off after my morning workout. A woman in my fitness class opens her locker across from mine. We’d bonded today during our exercise routine, exchanging eye rolls over classmates’ chitchat while we were trying to concentrate on our crunches. One moment of shared frustration — a good as any foundation for friendship.

I pull on my T-shirt. “GSA?” she asks. She tilts her head and towels her hair, studying the silk-screened logo adorning my chest.

August 1, 2012
Comic Consciousness

Remember when “queer” was an insult? I guess you can still use it if you’re feeling particularly retro, but in general most people are kinda over it. All those years of outing ourselves and parading through town chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” pretty much worked. 

April 18, 2012
Culture Shock

You’d think any big grocery store in a city the size of Eugene, especially a store founded by a Jew like Fred Meyer, would stock plenty of kosher-for-Passover Passover food during Passover. You’d think.

March 15, 2012
Southern Discomfort

I’ve been avoiding telling this story. First off, I’m not sure I can even say “butt hole” in print. 

With vocabulary options so limited, there’s no acceptable way to even mention, as we all learned in grade school astronomy, “Uranus” (even though, and I think I’m safe generalizing here, pretty much all of us have one).