(Dis)invited

I wish I could tell you that this past Sunday I had a great time at Medieval Times with Robb and his family for his dad's birthday. Unfortunately, I cannot. It has nothing to do with the show or the service. I'm sure they were wonderful. It has everything to do with the fact that I was uninvited.

Disinvited, as I've been calling it, because the manner in which it was done was so disrespectful.

Let's go way back...way back to before I'd ever met Robb. His older sister married a guy named Scott. And he was cool, way cool. He loved the drag queens, and he and Robb's sister even took Robb to his first pride parade. He was pretty much everything you could want in a brother-in-law.

And then something happened. And no one is really sure what...

He lost his job. He started drinking. That was last year-ish.

Fast forward. Robb and his sister are planning to take their dad to Medieval Times for his birthday. Dinner and tournament! Plans were laid. I was invited. And then I heard nothing for a while.

Fast forward to Friday of last week.

Robb emails me. Family drama. He didn't want to talk about it through email. He didn't want to talk about it at all. I went home and was getting ready for my birthday party. Robb was visibly bummed out. I asked him why.

Apparently his once-cool brother-in-law has taken all his accumulated self-loathing and become Hector Projector. And now we're the hated ones. Because we're gay. Suddenly he's this uber-religious, super-conservative, hateful bastard. He told his wife that he wouldn't go if we were both there. And then they bought tickets for everyone who was planing on going EXCEPT me.

So, in order to avoid conflict on the day they were celebrating his dad's birthday, Robb went. He pulled his sister aside and told her how horrible and discriminatory it was that this was going on, but he went. I don't fault him for that. I'd have done the same thing.

And she says she's going to do something about it. I am not holding my breath.

It's the first time I've been actively discriminated against--singly, anyway. And it makes me sick. How can someone I've had next to NO contact with be so shitty to me? How can he be such an asshole to his brother-in-law Robb who has been nothing but a spectacular uncle to his kids?! It's a damn shame, really.

And when someone hates me for no reason, it makes me want to give them a reason. I know I'd feel a hell of a lot better about him if he hated me for a reason. And if I didn't care so much about his sister and those three kids, I'd firebomb the damn house, slash his tires, do donuts in the back yard...something...anything to give him a reason.

But this senseless, baseless, random hatred is too much for me to handle. And it's not okay. Ever.

Out

About Flying...

The boy and I are going on vacation in July. He's got a GIS conference, and his work is footing the bill for a hotel for a week. So we're taking two friends and flying out to San Diego to kill a week and a half gallavanting around the city.

I plan on visiting the Nucleus Gallery while I'm there. I also plan on getting my picture taken in front of the National City, California sign for personal reasons. But my itinerary is subject to change until then. What isn't subject to change is my uneasiness with flying.

I wouldn't say it's fear. Flying just turns me in to an extremely religious person for a few hours. Every bump in the jet stream sends me into fits of prayer. To put my mind at ease, I do this little activity.

The first chance I get, I go to the bathroom. On my way there, I scrutinize my fellow passengers, count the children, look for nuns, look for people that may be murderers or rapists or Republicans. And then I make a judgment call. If the cumulative morality of all the passengers around me seems higher than normal, I feel safe. I think to myself, "God couldn't possibly knock a plane full of so many innocent chuldren and pious nuns and Jews out of the sky." If it looks like a bunch of nasty people who might as well all burn in a plane crash, I'm not so easy.

And I know it has nothing to do with their appearance or how many kids are on the plane...I know that a plane full of children and nuns is just as likely to go down as any other. But it makes me feel better.

And that, friends, is how I fly.

Out