Tag: houston

Thank you!

For everyone who’s calling and e-mailing, thank you for making me feel that we’re doing the right thing. The skies are just beautiful. The house has been safe through eighty years of tornados, hurricanes, and floods. Normally, I wouldn’t even consider leaving. But Katrina’s images from New Orleans and Mississippi took “normal” right out of my vocabulary.

Everyone be safe. =)

1,000 Blank White Cards

Update: I didn’t realize that Tim had already posted about this on his LJ. Damn, he’s quick.

Tonight Tim, Steve, Tom, and I met Rhonda and Lindsey at Meteor. It’s a great bar, but not long after we arrived, the music got louder, making conversation difficult. We voted to adjourn to The Compound and play 1,000 Blank White Cards.
Continue reading “1,000 Blank White Cards”

And I let them go thirsty…

Yesterday, our friend Lindsey called Tim to let us know that her father was collecting clothes to take to the Astrodome for the people being relocated here from New Orleans. She and Rhonda knew that we were feeling helpless and asked if we wanted to donate. OF COURSE! And I called my mother, who went through her clothes, too.

As soon as Lindsey and Rhonda found out we had some boxes for them, they jumped in the not-so-trusty truck and drove over to pick them up, even though they’d just gotten home from the gym. And could we just give them the clothes?

No, we had to abuse them. First, River took a flying leap of joy from the front porch to do a body block on Rhonda, who doesn’t weigh much more than River. Clearly, he thought she needed some love. Fortunately, Lindsey had managed to evade his exuberant welcome, but then she made the mistake of stepping inside, where she was greeted by the “We never get any attention, please touch us NOW” reactions of Margot and Guinness, who basically treated her body like a ladder that needed immediate climbing.

Further, just to show that no good deed goes unpunished, even though I KNEW they’d just left the gym, it never occurred to me to offer them a beverage.

Rhonda and Lindsey, tell me what to stock in my refrigerator. I keep water, sugar-free lemonade, Coke C2, and Diet Coke. But I’ll put whatever you like to drink in there and WILL NEVER SO SHAMEFULLY NEGLECT YOU AGAIN.

Meanwhile, kudos to you two and to Lindsey’s father for making it possible for us to help in some way.

P.S. Most of those clothes came from Tom. Who knew my husband had been such a clothes hoarder all these years?

Kick-starting creativity

Sometimes I just have to get out of the Home Office; a change of scenery can provoke renewed creativity.

Tonight, I’m working at Hollywood Cafe. There’s a Jackie Chan movie on and plenty of patrons chattering, but for some reason, I can still work here.

This used to be Hollywood Cafe and Books. Now the bookstore is around the corner on Fairview; it’s the only surviving GLBT bookstore in Houston. As far as I know, Marlon still works there. I adore Marlon. Stop into the bookstore and say hello to him sometime, or to the equally fabulous Ryan.

The affiliated restaurant next door once gave me some fortune cookies late at night because I was shooting photographs for possible use on the jacket of THREE FORTUNES. Alyson went with their own cover, but I still appreciate the generosity of the restaurant.

Check out Hollywood Cafe for coffee, a snack, their wifi connection, the gigantic TV screen, or conversation on the outside patio, where you can keep an eye on people going in and out of the bars, or maybe get Merlyn to read your Tarot cards.

This. Makes. Me. Crazy.

Ah… June. The annual opportunity for whiners to say to their gay brothers and sisters, “Stop dressing (or undressing) like that for the Parade! You know the media will focus on you. Then all the straight people will be scared and think we don’t deserve equal rights and blah blah blah…”

Spectators who are too stupid to have figured out where the media turns its cameras are too stupid to grasp the concept that “equal rights” is not the same as “special rights.” If a parade was 500 people calmly strolling along in business suits, the streets wouldn’t be lined with anyone, including the media, and it still wouldn’t make stupid and mean people strike their foreheads and exclaim, “Oh my gosh, yes! They are JUST LIKE US. Quick, let’s give them the right to marry and adopt children and leave their partners their worldly goods and not be fired or bashed or ostracized for who they are!”

It’s a parade. It’s a PRIDE parade. So if getting your sculpted body on a bar float, or wearing a wig that weighs more than a golden retriever, or pulling the leather out of the closet helps you feel proud of who you are and celebrate it, hooray!

And next time, dammit, throw me more beads because that bratty kid next to me who was there with his whole family–and I’m betting NONE of them were gay–was lunging for and snatching everything that came our way.