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Dan Savage and Me
I have an admission: I have a thing for celebrities. Many people would be surprised to learn that one of my guiltiest pleasures, well, shall we say my GUILTIEST pleasure is following terrible celebrity blogs and learning who is dating who and all that meaningless rabble. If you want to discuss celebrity smut, most likely I am your girl! I can gossip about something that is as completely meaningless as these lives that don’t connect with ours in an authentic way. The biggest irony is my absolute disconnect with these people and what they do that actually makes them famous since we rarely participate in pop culture outside of music. But to this, I get to connect without having real investment, like watching an episode of Friends.
Anyhow, I go through celebrity ‘phases’ where I will adore a celebrity for a little while. I adored the New Kids’ Donnie and Jon as a teenager, then there was a VERY brief Ricky Martin phase that lead to some funny bachelorette party shenanigans in my honor. After I watched The Pillow Book I became fascinated with Ewan McGregor (then he turned into Obiwan and sang in Moulin Rouge which just cemented everything). From there it was Jim from The Office (not to be confused with John Krasinski) and now I am resuming my decades old fascination with my Dan Savage. Yes, MY Dan Savage! Dan and I go way back. He is unaware, of course, but I was one of the ones way back in the day listening to his crazy radio show on 107.7 in the early nineties. I would call to ask a question from time to time, and oh, what a thrill to be waiting on the phone, the next question up… Only to get hung up on. It seemed Dan always managed to pre-answer my questions while answering the previous caller’s question so he’d let me offline before I ever had the chance. I read his column, read his books as he wrote and published them and continued to follow him.
Then the Internet happened and the world opened up. It seems like Dan is everywhere now doing his important things and because I adore Dan I suck it all up. I think he is smart and agree with him on most things he chooses to be passionate about. He says important things about marriage equality that people need to hear, he leads an honorable life (in my opinion) and he draws parallels that really illustrate his points well. He tells people they are ok, that who they are inside is ok (usually, he does have some caveats), he says ‘so what?’ to society’s perceptions and rules, he tells people to seek happiness and personal fulfillment, to enjoy life and live honestly. I listen to the lovecast, read his SLOG, bought the app, read the column and watch the show. I hated that he got an MTV show for a while because I was worried they would turn him into a Dr. Drew or something, but watching him on the show just made him nicer somehow, less grouchy and snarky. He’s still funny, snarky Dan, but now I get to see a sympathetic look on his face as he delivers his funny, sincere and sometimes biting advice.
I think I’d get along well with Dan. I’d like to have him over for dinner and I think I’d have the best night ever, outside of the silliness that ensues with my own partner night after night of course. But the reality is that there are many like me in the world who think like that, so until I become a famous advice columnist or advocate effectively for sexuality in some regard, I thought my chances to spend an evening with this person were nil. And then, last weekend I saw it. My chance to boogie down with Dan. Last Saturday night my parents just a happened to be in town and Ira Glass just happened to be in town and, well, Dan Savage lives locally, so of course he was in town too. The stars aligned and they threw a dance party the night that my parents decided to take our kids. Nights off without kids are far and few between, so it was, like, the most perfect thing ever. The event was only $10, so we went! I think this is as close as I’ll ever get to dinner with Dan.
The line went around the block, we joined in and stood for a long time when the bouncers came around to let us know that if we were holding tickets we didn’t need to wait in the line that wrapped around THREE sides of the block. We had tickets. We had made it over halfway through the line. There were a few older people like us there in the crowd, but we were definitly the old ones in the room. Everyone around us got carded except us. We were waved in. Ouch! We felt a touch silly that we waited in line so long but were thrilled when we got into the Showbox just as Dan and Ira took to the stage. I was pleasantly surprised to see Terry, Dan’s husband, there as well. (He photographs well and dances even better. We will leave it at that.) I am enough of a Dan aficionado to know that he is not a music guy. His husband, Terry, is, but he does not listen to Dan friendly music, it’s a battle in his house won by Iron Maiden, apparently. I had no idea what he would play, so predicted that Dan would share show tunes based on a few ‘Danecdotes’ (ha ha). He did not disappoint, playing Julie Andrews, Ethel Merman, Olivia Newton John… It went on and on in the most surreal dance party made up of hipsters, geeks and gays. It was FANTASTIC! Frankly, the BEST CROWD EVER. Ira was all pop with Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and pop on top of more pop, to which I was wondering where the audience for that music was. Anyhow, it was fun! Who knew Ira Glass was a booty shaker? Both Dan and Ira got down and danced on the floor, Dan threw devil horns all night long which made us laugh, and even though Bradley and I were both absolute crabby-grumpy-pants all night, I can still TOTALLY appreciate this event. And when it happens again in another ten years, hopefully Terry will be Dan’s husband on our side of the border as well as Canada, hopefully Bradley and I will be in better moods, and hopefully Ira will pick non-Disney sponsored musicians because I assure you, the Lj’s will return, and when we do, we will bring it!
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Harvest
09.12.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on HarvestWe grew the heirloom varieties of carrots this year. They were GIANTS!!!
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First Day
09.11.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on First Day
Gigi’s first day was last week. Her first day at moorlands also signaled the end of our schooling together. It was simultaneously easier and way harder than I thought it would be. I’m not going to lie, I saw the screwed up sad face every night, she got little sleep and we even found her wandering her room tearfully one morning at 3:am. We ushered her into our bed and were thankful when Friday rolled in.
But this week is all fresh and all new. Faces are becoming familiar, routines are becoming, well, routine. She has a wonderful new friend named Sarah who shares the middle name if Guinevere as well. They think it’s meant to be, and we may very well agree.
For his part, Jude has been heartbroken. He and Gigi are like peas and carrots, together, mixed up, a marvelous combination. On the third night he had enough. He missed his sister and when she got home she ran up to her room to play barbies and relax, WITHOUT her brother. She was downstairs for dinner and he decked her. We were shocked! When we started talking to him he revealed that he misses his Gigi so much that he hit her because he wanted her to talk to him, to be his buddy! He cried and cried and cried and broke our hearts with his woefulness. Needless to say, we created some family events to pull us all together and gave us all a sense of unity.
As for me, my year has been delightful. My move to third grade was a good choice. I’m tremendously happy with my students and my new classroom. Everything is going so well!
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Ice Cream Dinner
09.03.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Ice Cream Dinner
The last night of summer finds the Lj crew eating the traditional ‘Ice Cream For Dinner’ night… More talked about than Christmas in our house!
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Fresh Start
I moved classrooms this year. This may not seem like a big deal, but I have a lot of stuff AND who wants to spend that much vacation time at work sifting through boxes, cleaning stuff, organizing…? No? Me either. I waited until early August to step into my new classroom to see this:
A mess. I sorted and sifted and moved boxes from here to there, unpacked, broke down… Then would go home and think about how much more I needed to do! The good news is that I got it looking pretty good today! Yes, there are boxes of junk shoved behind doors and hidden in a few corners, but I’ll get to those as the year goes on.
Gigi and Bradley were kind enough to take on the monumental task of organizing, sorting and color coding my library. It looks amazing!
This classroom surprised me with how much I love the space. I’m so much happier here than I thought I’d be, and I was pretty excited! Perhaps the person who took care of the room during the past few years left some of her good karma behind. Perhaps it’s my frame of mind. Regardless, the first day of school waits for no one and finally, after a long summer of tinkering away at it, I’m glad to say I’m ready.
(Bradley and Jude made these cos every classroom needs a lil touch of galaxy far far away goodness)
