Whinging It

I met with a whippersnapper sales wunderkind yesterday, and for reasons too boring to go into, we were discussing the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.  “Were you here?” he asked me, indicating the office in which we were sitting.

I smiled sweetly at the youth and said, “No…I was in seventh grade…in Colorado.” I gave him an out with the Colorado so we could both pretend that I don’t look old enough to have been working there for at least twenty years.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Being an idiotic whippersnapper, he scrunched up his forehead in thought: “So that would make you…how old?”

Why is it not taught to all males that they should never, ever, ever, ever ask a woman her age?  Why?

Me: “Thirty-three.”

Him: “Good for you!”

The hell? I was half a mind to take him out back to the woodshed and teach him some manners.  I also purposefully used the phrase “what all the crazy kids are doing these days” later in the meeting, because I am nothing if not a smartass.

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Wife and I have, of course, been watching Glee on Fox this season. And while I adore it with all of my TV-loving self and can’t get enough of a show that dabbles in themes of high school social castes, musical reflections of society, and cheerleading, there was a scene last week that was a little…off for me.

***Note that if you have not seen last week’s episode, there will be a spoiler here, but I have thoughtfully refrained from discussing this until now for all of the DVR heads like us.***

So the scene in question was the one where Kurt comes out to his dad, and his dad is not shocked about it and says he (the dad) has known since Kurt was a baby.  And then the dad says something along the lines of Kurt being gay makes the dad uncomfortable and he doesn’t really like it (the gay), but nothing could make him stop loving Kurt.

I volunteer at an LGBT Hotline where a lot of teenagers call to discuss issues with their families and/or how to come out to their parents, and Kurt’s dad’s response is a good reflection of what occurs when the majority of teenagers come out.  Their parents LOVE the kid, but they don’t like The Gay.

I find this response of love with caveat abhorrent. Sexuality itself is a benign trait. Individuals have no more control over to whom they’re attracted than they do over their natural skin color. I mean, I wish I could explain why I think both Angelina Jolie and Seth Rogen are attractive, and I wish I could explain why I get sunburnt walking to my car, but I can’t. It’s part of who I am, not part of what I do.  It’s not like I’ve had sex with Ms. Jolie or Mr. Rogen, and while I suppose I could put on sunscreen to go to the parking lot, it still doesn’t resolve the fact that my avatar should be Casper.

Traits that a person is either born with and/or develops before rational enough to make decisions, I believe, are not cause for a parent to express dissatisfaction.

Wife disagrees with me. She thinks it’s reasonable that a parent be able to express his/her discomfort with a gay child, but I just see it in terms of if one of my parents told me he/she was not fond of the fact that I have brown hair. It’s clearly the parent’s issue, and there’s nothing to be gained by burdening the kid with it.

To be clear: I do not think parents should out-and-out lie to their gay kids that things are sunshine and roses and can I purchase you some contraception?  I think it’s reasonable to discuss if parents are uncomfortable with the idea of gay sex, the “gay lifestyle,” or rainbow flags, but I just don’t think it’s okay to tell a child that his/her sexuality is wrong.  It seems cruel to me.

And to be clear again: I also believe it’s okay for adults to engage in any consensual sexual acts they want to, and by no means intend this to reflect any sort of “hate the sin but love the sinner” mentality. (Aren’t we all sinners?) Just as I think it would be appropriate for a parent to discourage a straight kid from having sex because of pregnancy/std/crying-jags-upon-breakups fears, I think it would be appropriate to discourage a gay kid from getting too sexually adventurous without considering potential emotional and physical consequences.

Sometimes? When you haven’t been allowed to take your toys out into the yard? Sometimes you have to made do with scrap wood left over from building the coop.

In the context of a discussion of how Wife and I find it funny (weird, not ha ha) that there are now junior highs and high schools that cater to career paths, mainly because we find it difficult to believe that most children can accurately pick adult jobs at the ages of 12 or 14, Wife says:

“Kids aren’t even aware of what jobs are out there.  I mean, the world is not populated with cowboys, firemen, fairy princesses and ballerinas.”

For the record, I thought I would be President. I remember feeling all relieved that I only had to wait one year after I turned 35 for an election.  Because of how qualified I would already be, of course. I was already the class president in fourth grade.

Look for my campaign posters in the 2012 election season.

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Speaking of elections, it looks like there will be another Prop 8 vote in California in 2010.

I’m not ready.  I mean, yes it would be awesome if Prop 8 got overturned, and maybe it really WAS all just a misunderstanding and some people totally DID think they were voting “No” when they voted “Yes,” and maybe some old curmudgeons HAVE died and taken their votes with them, and maybe others HAVE realized just how much anyone else’s marriage does not affect his/her own.

But I’m not ready to be voted on again. I’m not ready to hear regular radio ads about how my wife and I are not as worthy of protection. I’m not ready to see signs in neighbors’ yards with happy little graphics of “real” families holding hands.

The powers-that-be keep taking surveys over whether this should be tackled in 2010 or 2012, and I want so badly for it to be 2012, but only because I’m not ready yet.

Bleaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

In discussion of my suggestion that the Roman Catholic church use Communion wafers reminiscent of a decent candy, Wife said, “I think it should still be Necco Wafers. You can’t have TOO good of a candy. There’s something off about wanting to chow down on a bag of Jesus.”

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When asked what she would like on her gravestone* if she could choose anything, she responded, “My real name is Dick Whitman.”

*I don’t recall the context of why we were discussing this, but it didn’t seem that morbid at the time.

I have bad teeth.  Not in the sense of crooked or snaggle-toothed, but in the way that I had to have my first gum graft surgery when I was 19 because of the crazy receding.  As kids, my sisters and I could brush the same way for the same length of time, and they would get no cavities and I would have three.  This was particularly annoying as my parents paid us if we had a cavity-free checkup.  (Mental note for childhood grudge: I didn’t get paid for getting straight A’s every semester but one or never missing a curfew.  Just lack of cavities in six-month spans.)

At some point, I threw up my hands in a big gesture of what’s the point. I floss if I have something stuck in my teeth.  I brush after every meal, but mainly because I usually insist upon having garlic at lunch. I use mouthwash because I like the way it burns in such a delicious way.

And yet, despite my reasonable practices of oral hygiene, I cannot escape The Lectures. They are handed down successively from the receptionist (”Uh oh! Looks like it’s been longer than six months!), the hygienist (”Let me show you how to floss as you look like a brain-dead sloth who cannot manage a piece of string.”) to the dentist herself (”You DO have an electric toothbrush?  What about a water pik? Do you think your teeth look even more yellow than the last time you were here?”).  I finally asked them to put a notation in my chart that if I get another lecture or comment on the inferiority of my teeth, I won’t go back.

And of course, the next time I went in, I got The Lecture, but because I am nothing if non-confrontational, I didn’t tell them that I wouldn’t be back and/or why. I just skipped the next check-up and ignored the reminder postcards and chipper voice-mails.

However, they caught me at work the other day.  In a moment of goodwill, I picked up the phone on the unknown number and got the dental receptionist, sweetly noting that it had been awhile since they’d seen me. Without thinking, I said, “It’s because I don’t want to go there,” which rightly flustered her.  Recouping, I asked if she could recommend any of their hygienists who wouldn’t read me a riot act, and she got me an appointment, so fingers crossed.

They’re really lucky that I’d rather just go to the office for my appointment instead of look up the number to cancel.