NOprah

I have three major influences in my life.

My mother, the obsessive compulsive, super-smelling, freakishly-strong for her size, shoe loving, potato-chip eating marvel of genetic design that she is, Barbra Streisand (I know, surprisesurprise) and Oprah Winfrey.

Strong Black Women

Since her first show in 1986 I have been an Oprah fan.  I was six and she was Oprah.  She was the best thing to hit my afternoon TV since Reva Shayne on The Guiding Light.  Sure, I stopped watching her show when I got to high school and it began to interfere with my busy life of show choir [I still, 10 years and two sweatshirts later, am a little bit foggy on what exactly “Expressions in Motion” means but that might just be because when I was motion my expression was singular: pained.] and shadowing Windsor HS’ stage-manger extraordinaire in drama club rehearsals.  But with Oprah the adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” was true.  The less I watched her show, the more terrific her personality loomed in my mind.

Some people believed in Jiminy Cricket.  I believed in Oprah.

When you wish upon a star, chose either Oprah or Barbra.

When people were running around with those silly WWJD bracelets (Answer: He’d slap you for wearing those stupid bracelets.) I would scoff at them and secretly think, “WWOWD.”  I even wore my hair like Oprah. (Somewhere there is the photographic evidence of this.  Let’s you and I both hope that they are not in electronic form.)  Oprah was everything I wanted to be: respected, successful and powerful.

So while I understand that after 25 years Oprah is ready to move on to other things, I’m really floored.  I feel like she just told Harpo to beat me.
I honestly thought that the Oprah Winfrey show would outlive me.  I thought that Oprah Winfrey would discover the cure for aging past 60 and would just go on forever.  I know that she’s striking out on her OWN but it won’t be the same.  I won’t be the same.  And now you know that awful Tyra is going to want her own channel too, though ANTM does pretty much own the CW which I guess sort of counts as half a network.  That just sent shivers down my spine.

But I guess once you’ve beaten the meat industry and picked a President there’s not much left.

Oh-prah.

I think my search for a theme song may be over.

When work starts to get to me I channel my inner Barbra.  Specifically this Barbra.

It totally works.  You should try it sometime.

Oh, and by the way… you’re welcome.

Sang a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go.

So, I’ve been sitting here on my couch watching American football (arguably one of the best things about Fall – except for the foliage, of course), ironing my clothes for the week (It’s a weird, nerdy total time-saver and is super-helpful when you’re between laundry runs), making dinner, being domestic with RHS and recovering from our 4-mile run today.

I totally forgot that it was National Coming Out Day.

Over at Pam’s House Blend they’ve got a lovely compilation of videos from the March on DC that seems appropriate for the day.

I tend to think that everyday is a coming out day.  Not that I run around New York City, stopping random passersby and tourists to let them know that I am gay (I let my tie and my loafers do the talking for me) but every single day I live my life as openly as possible.

When I came out to my mother in 2003 over the phone…

BPD: Guess what Mommy, I’m in a play!
BPD’s Mommy: That’s wonderful sweetie, what role do you play?
BPD: I play a lesbian and that’s really easy because I am one in real life.
BPD’s Mommy: How wonderful, you’re in a play.
BPD & BPD’s Mommy: (awkward silence)
BPD’s Mommy: So you’re a lesbian in real life?
BPD: Yeah.
BPD’s Mommy: Well you’ll draw on experience then.
BPD: Yeah.
BPD’s Mommy: Well, thanks for telling your mother.
BPD: About the play?
BPD’s Mommy: About everything.  Thanks for feeling like you can tell your mother anything.  I appreciate that.
BPD: You’re welcome.
BPD’s Mommy: I love you.  Break a leg in your play.

… my biggest worry was that she’d hang right up on me and that’d be it.

Her biggest concern was (and, I would wager, still is) that life would be difficult for me.  I was (and, I would wager, still am) her BabyGirl and the last thing that she wants is for my life to be difficult.  And over the years I’ve tried to make her understand that being closeted made my life difficult.  That as awful as it sometimes is, having to endure hateful tirades and having to keep constant vigilance about my safety when I am about in the world is still loads easier than those years I spent closeted.

So every day that I am out in the world living my life just as I see fit is a victory. Every day that I don’t have to live a closeted life is a triumph.  I come out every morning when I roll over and see RHS’ sleeping head, every pay-day when I look at my check and see that we are covered by my health-insurance, every Sunday when we go on our runs through Prospect Park and talk about our plans for the future, every time someone stops me at work to ask me about my ties and every time my sister wants to talk to RHS on the phone so that they can commiserate about me.

I congratulate all that have made today (yesterday and tomorrow) National Coming Out Day.

Especially you, Diana.

Team America, Fuck Yeah!

Suck it, Brazil.

Earlier this week I was feeling all down about the fact that America lost its bid for the 2016 Olympics but I must say this news this morning of President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize – after three of our scientists taking the Nobel Prize in Medicine – really eases the pain.

After all, Brazil may have won the Olympics, but they didn’t win any Nobel Prizes.  Maybe we can loan them one of our 318.¹ 

Now I am sure that some outlets on the Right are really working hard today to paint the fact that our sitting President winning a Nobel Peace Prize is a super bad thing.  I’m sure that someone will even have the gall to throw in a little Affirmative Action into the mix to which I say: It sure as hell is an Affirmative Action pick.  Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize AFFIRMS that his ACTIONS are in line with the aims of the global community and AFFIRMS that America’s ACTIONS are being well received by that community.  Which is awesome for Team America.

If the certain outlets on the Right want to believe that this is bad then, well, that’s on them.  Some people just like to be miserable.  Maybe the flags that they’ve wrapped themselves in have gotten too tight and have decreased the flow of oxygen to their brains.  Maybe they’ve been smothered by their tea bags.

Course, I would like to remind them, that you can’t be a right proper jingoist, if you’re going to be all Team America, Fuck No about this.

And also, in Team America news… we fucking shot the moon.  And it’s as awesome as it sounds.  I’m going to wait until to post Dr. Rachel Maddow’s take on it tonight.  Which should be totally nerdalicious.  Fuck Yeah!

.

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¹Which makes me kind of sad for Brazil.  Seriously, maybe we can give them one of ours.  Not Barack’s, but someone’s. 
Brazil is awesome – my friends have the pictures on Facebook to prove it.  The Olympics are going to be a rocking good time because, I firmly believe, Brazil knows how to party.  And sport.

Just the Facts

I’ve had a couple of interesting responses to The Facts of Lifestyle.

What is interesting about them is that it seems that these few responders felt the need overlook the point that I was trying to make in order to defend the Duggars and to tell me to lay off of them.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

If you’re a fan of the Duggars don’t front.  If you don’t like when you think that people are talking smack about the Duggars, come clean.  That’s your thing.
You’re not interested in furthering the discussion; you’re interested in defending the Duggars.  And pretending otherwise, like say for example, that you’re worried that I might be lashing out at them and that’s just no good for me… that’s only going to burn my grits.  Just say you’re a fan, that you love the show, think the kids are adorable and that you can’t wait for the next Duggar.  Be honest.   I wouldn’t say boo to you.

Don’t chastise me on my own blog because you can’t (won’t) grasp the larger point that I was making.
Don’t wag your finger at me and tell me not to be judgmental.

I’ll bite that finger right on off.

The Lone Gunmen would be so proud.

My grandmother believes that the Wheel of Fortune is fixed against the black man by a vast conspiracy orchestrated by Vanna White.  (“Her last name is White, afterall, Undra.”)
She told me this one day when I was twelve right after she told me that she didn’t put much stock in the “science” of evolution because if scientists were so smart they should have been able to see through the hoax of the moon landing. After all the flag was waving and The Star Treks was a TV show and the quality wasn’t nearly as grainy as the “quote moon-landing.”

I was right in the middle of suggesting that perhaps the flag was waving because space is a vacuum and the waving was really just the flag being restrained from being sucked out into the ether by the pole.  That explanation made sense to a twelve year old.  It did not make sense to my grandmother who said that the only vacuum that she was concerned with was the Hoover that I wasn’t pushing across her living room floor.

My Uncle once told me that he didn’t play pool because it’s a racist game that serves as a metaphor for how the white man (cue ball) eliminates all of the other cultures (solids and stripes) before finally going after the black ball and dominating the world.

I watched the X-Files.  All nine years.
I am currently obsessed with Fringe.  (You should hit me up on the email or the comments if you want to know my theory on what’s going on in the series.)
I am not averse to conspiracy.

But the conspiracy theories that have been jumping off around HCR have left me speechless.  They were… honestly?  Hysterical.  They were X-Files season 8 and 9 laughable.  They were Mulder is the Smoking Man’s son laughable.    I mean, come on now.
So though they were seriously batshit, I think for the most part I was able to keep them at arm’s length.  I really don’t like to get that close to crazy.

But this new mess about Obama’s speech to the school-goers of America being a kind of indoctrination and brainwashing comparable to Communist China is just beyond The Whoa!  Seriously, what in the Sam Goody!?!

First of all what is wrong with indoctrinating our children with a sense of the importance of education?  Should children not think that their education is important?
Is this just like the problem with giving everyone health-care?  You know, the theory that if everyone has an opportunity and an investment in succeeding, all of America will collapse?

I don’t think that Damon Weaver would have gotten his interview with the President (or Oprah) if he hadn’t been imbued, at an early age, with the idea that with his education he could do amazing things.  Hell, I don’t think that Barack Obama would be POTUS if he hadn’t been similarly instructed.

Secondly…
Okay I’ve got no secondly.

I’m still totally confused about how Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin are anti-education.
Maybe they’d both rather see this

That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang.

than this

Moorehouse. More graduates.

Shame on them.

The Interwebs hearts the gays…

At least that’s the spin that I’m putting on it.

• Ben & Jerry’s all but admitted that they’re big ‘ol gays (and possibly married to each other!).

Hubbylicious.

• Vermont is making New York State look bad in the best possible of ways.

• Hypocritical bigots make themselves look bad and hopefully get the severe lactose intolerance they deserve.

• Ellen Degeneres tells us about the importance of outer beauty and flashes her eyes at us.

• Rachel Maddow survives the Swine Flu and is the 2nd sexiest woman with a gun.

2nd sexiest woman with a gun.
Vodpod videos no longer available.

#1 sexiest woman with a gun.

I know she's not carrying a gun in this shot... but still, 1st sexiest all the way.

Thank you, interwebs.

Leave the Chanel at home.

RHS is the maid of honor in a a dear friend’s wedding so we are schlepping up to the Berkshires this evening.

We will be staying in a beautiful little cottage with no phone, no TV and very spotty internet access so I will be offline for the better part of the weekend.  I panicked a little bit when I was finally clued in to the… rusticness of the whole thing, but I thought to myself, “Self WWWGD?”

“Why, Self,” I replied, “She would put on her cutest outfit and her most sensible (and fashionable) heels and have herself fun in the way only a Gilbert can.  She would relax, relate, release herself into the full celebration of the nuptials of the happy couple!”

Course, I think we all know that Whitley Gilbert would survive about two second in the Berkshires. I give myself four.

The Interwebs is my friend.

Top 5 awesome things that I stumbled across on the interwebs today:
Well, six if you count this!

5.     Michelle Obama and her husband are the best dressed people in the world meanwhile wrinkly racist haters didn’t even make the list.  It is hard being bitter and ugly.

4.    Supercomputer?  No, you are!

3.    The Black Snob has been nominated for a number of 2009 Black Weblog Awards.  Vote.  All of the cool snobs are doing it.

2.    Believe it or not, George isn’t home, but he and all of his buddies are reuniting on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

1.   Euna Lee and Laura Ling are coming home.   Will you marry me, Bill?