Kennel cough

Training a new dog so that he can be successfully acclimated to your home is a challenge in itself. Throw in some rambunctiousness along with just a touch of stubbornness, then add a case of kennel cough, and you've got the makings of a very long night indeed. Beau, my new dog, is a sweet addition to our home. He's good natured and seems to learn quickly. However, when he came to sounding as if he'd cough up a Mack truck, I got very worried. Thank goodness for the doctors at Dogwood Veterinary Hospital (www.dogwoodvet.com) who assuaged my fears over the phone and Beau's cough in their clinic. Dr. Johnson's calm advice during a 4 AM call helped Beau to get some rest and me to get some peace of mind. At least I was able to clean up the phlegm and vomit without too much difficulty. The medines seem to be helping him, and everyone is getting some needed rest.

New Technology

Getting a new computer may seem like a great step, especially when its predecessor had actually died; however, setting up the new computer is not treat when you've data to recover all messed together in some crazy dump of an old hard drive. Next step during this coming week will be cleaning up data off my kids computer that served as an interim device for me for more than a month. The tax return is wiped out, but I've got a good machine having taken a little less for video card at 128 MB of RAM there, but with a faster Intel processor. It's a Gateway, which is a brand that has served me quite well in the past. Now I hope that when Windows Vista hits the market, this computer will be adequately equipped to handle the upgrade.

iPod update: over 1500 songs and more than 1200 photos in only 7 gig of data. I love it!

Wow!

I love my new video iPod.

3121

Te amo, corazón is a nice song, easy to hear, but a boring video. Prince's music has always been a delight to me even if at times only because of its variety in style and complexity. His abandonment of sexual funkadelic has not diminished his abilities as a songwriter. Still, the flavor of his music videos could become bland. If he can put out a good dance video next, with some popping choreography, it would be a good move. More than likely, I'll buy the album and not simply to keep my collection intact.

Gene Shalit needs to learn to separate criticism from dimwitticism

Please read this article and view the clip linked there before reading my post: http://www.glaad.org/action/alerts_detail.php?id=3849#. Thank you.

Normally, I'd just let inflammatory comments slide. Although my family might accuse me of soapboxing from time to time, it's not my style to do so.

Gene Shalit certainly has every right to his entire opinion of the film Brokeback Mountain and his characterization of the roles there portrayed. However, as a respected media figure, his choice of "sexual predator" was not the best. I would even agree the nascent moments of Jack and Ennis's sexual relationship were very aggressive, and one could certainly describe it as violent, but Mr. Shalit's cleverly coined quotes demonstrate more a misinterpretation of gay male relationships. Instead, the accusatory label obfuscates the intention of the film by categorizing and marginalizing homosexual men.

The two men that Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger carefully ensconce in their performances are but one microcosm of male sexuality, and by no means does this film serve as an example of how all men are - gay, straight, bi or whatever. The fierce debut of their affaire reflects their fear of the rest of the world; the infrequent trysts are the more like the installments of Harry Potter novels - addictive, intense, too few and far between, understood to have an eventual end that hope tries to keep at bay but cannot.

Humbly, I would submit that this film by Ang Lee is not so very different than Robert Mulligan's film adaptation of Same Time, Next Year. The lack of much comedy in Mr. Lee's film is a good mirror of the lack of humor that most Americans have one the subject when they remember that being gay has absolutely nothing to do with fashion, show tunes or home makeovers. It has everything to do with men loving each other and having sex with each other. Brokeback Mountain is more about choices that all people make concerning relationships, love, marriage and family. Because the two lead characters are men who want each other, a lot of people will choose not to see this movie. Unfortunately, Mr. Shalit's choice of words may mean that even more will not.

Christmas Eve Eve

The day before the night before Christmas can be its own special time. Today with my children was at once rife with high tension and relatively carefree. Without school or work as part of our daily routine, we could take our time doing as we pleased with the day. We slept late, had hot breakfast together, lounged about while watching the History Channel. Later, I worked on some translation work to earn some extra cash in the New Year while my two munchkins played with Magnetix and read books.

Rather than exert ourselves in any way by cooking at home for lunch, we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, chatted, ate, drank sweet iced tea. Then we truly braved the crowds and bought some last minute decorations to add to the tree and a present for my boyfriend, John, since his birthday is the 28th. At the department store, we met an acquaintance, the mother of one of my son's former Cub Scout Den-mates. It felt so pleasant to have a friendly conversation, just to enjoy being part of the community. The only drawback was the drive home. Traffic was absolutely frightful. The car before us at one intersection was from Massachusetts, and its driver seemed as lost and confused as we did ourselves.

Finally we made it home. I helped my son work on a model airplane that he's assembling for a social studies project. My daughter played more with her magnetic toys. The evening ended with us watching "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" on cable television. Tomorrow morning will be filled with the smells of hashbrowns for breakfast and baked cookies for Santa Claus. I can hardly wait. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Waking Up With A Headache

It's hard to start your day feeling as if you can conquer the world when your head is aching, your throat is burning and you're more exhausted than when you went to bed.

Doves

crayon de mine graphite - octobre October 2005 2005
I did this drawing from photographs that I took of doves flying over the Little River Canyon near Fort Payne, AL.

Pre-tax or Post-tax

Trying to make heads or tails of the complexities of employee benefits during open enrollment can be quite confusing. The prospect of orthodontics for my children leaves me wondering if it’s even possible to put enough into my medical flex savings account. It may all become a tax benefit, but then there’s not enough available for gasoline or groceries. Yikes! Nevertheless, I’ve reenrolled, and I supposed I’ll have 12 full months to decide whether I’ve made a horrible mistake.

Glass & Glitter

Once either of those shiny bits hits your floor, you will never get them all from the carpet or linoleum or hardwood. Months after the Pyrex lid crashes and shatters on the floor, a bare foot finds the one missed sliver embedded between two toes, a trickle of blood unable to hide the sparkle. As for glitter, once a seven year old gets hold of a shaker for a class project, you can run your vacuum cleaner until the Apocolypse, and there will be still one more glint in the carpet when the Lord's hallowed luminescence enters into your home.

Fleurs de lis blanches (White lilies)

aquarelle watercolor - juillet July 2005

Fleur de lis rose (Pink lily)

aquarelle watercolor - juillet July 2005

Movies

Le cinéma me plaît depuis ma toute petite jeunesse. Les histoires racontées au grand écran, la salle de séance noire, les vedettes à dix mètres[...]tout cela je trouve super au sujet des films. Même un film qui semble mauvais à la télé peut être épatant au cinéma.

Since my youth movies have always been a personal pleasure. Stories told on the big screen, blackened auditoriums, stars thirty feet tall...all of it is incredible in movies. Even a bad TV movie can be remarkable at the movies.

In The Life

American media is screwed, over spun. We can have nothing gay it seems in mainstream media unless it's about interior decorating or fashion makeovers. I'm not asking to see men having sex together on prime time TV (but I wouldn't mind). I mean, would it have been so bad if Will or Jack had partnered with a great guy by the time Will & Grace had come to a close? After all, Karen and Grace each got married and divorced. We can just ignore the Jack + Rosario plot line as that dealt more I feel with undocumented workers rather than anything gay or straight. If you've got the money for cable or DVD collections, you can see what's happening on Six Feet Under, Queer As Folk or The L Word, but even in those remarkable programs, the mark sometimes gets missed; too much is spent on sex, and not enough is spent on people, graphically I mean. Why do we have to wait until June, Pride month, before we get regular feedback in the media anyway? It's not like nobody is gay the other 11 months of the year.

A little picture of me

Me voilà à mon mobile. Here I am on my cell.

"Summer time

...and the living is easy." As a teacher, I find that my summers are relatively free for me to do as I please. I stay up too late, watch too many movies, read a lot, though much of what I read isn't the quality I plan. Internet chat and lounging by the swimming pool take too great of the portion of my free time rather than spending it on drawing and painting as I should. When the school year begins anew, I want to have refreshed my creative sensibilities and not just those pertaining to my couch potato esprit.

Wicked

Here's my recommendation for summer reading--Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. It's a sort of prequel to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The book focuses on Dorothy's verdigris nemesis, chronicling her origins and metamorphesis into the infamous witch. I highly recommend it. Check out my profile (SWANK) on bookcrossing.com to find out when I'll release my copy.

Voilà, je commence.

D'accord, c'est le début.

So here I begin. In a matter of two more days, I reach the start of my 37th year. There will be no fanfare, I'm almost positive. Perhaps I'll have a soy lattè at the new café. Or maybe I'll sleep late in John's hotel room in Commerce. No matter what, I don't want to be alone. My children will be with their mother, where I am loathe for them to be, and not just on my birthday. In what is supposed to be my year, the Year of the Rooster, 3rd cycle in my lifetime, I'm not having the best of luck. I must have misread information about the Asian Zodiac. I'm not sure that it would have been any better any other year. This custody battle with my ex-wife Morgan has turned into a nightmare. I cannot bear to be without my children. When they are gone, it is hard to fill up my time with anything of worth.

This is an exercise in self-loathing maybe. One I shall end soon because I'm sure it will bore readers quickly.