Mommy with a Penis

Without getting into specifics, I've been on my back for seven days...and not in the good way. Why the fuck am I being quixotic? I'll tell you the specifics. What started as a cough continued into a flair of sinusitis and an ear infection. This led to flu like symptoms, you know, charming things like body aches, shakes, sweats, slight nausea, diarrhea. And add to that, what sent me skittering along the precipice...dehydration...again. I don't know why my body has never had a problem maintaining hydration until this year. My most embarrassing moment happened after I suffered through a painful, loose bowel movement and then broke out into severe flop sweat. My entire shirt was soaked through and I simultaneously felt like puking and passing out. The only thing I thought would give me any sense of relief was the cool tile floor. With my pants still around my ankles and my rear still unwiped, I placed my cheek on the bathroom floor hoping that this was the illness...

Jessica Simpson's cover of Elle this month seems familiar, doesn't it? And I don't think any of us has to dig too deeply into our sleep-deprived, vodka-soaked brains to suss out the reference. Who could forget the Vanity Fair cover that Annie Liebovitz shot so startlingly of Demi Moore's pregnant voluptuousness back in 1991? From the exact same pose, to the ginormous bling on their left middle fingers, to the fact these two celebutants are both carrying girl children, the Simpson pic is a duplicate of what some found scandalous twenty-one years ago. (Although I prefer Demi's arrogant in-the-distance gaze to Jessica's in-your-face,  Zoolander  directness.) But this piece isn't about who did what first, nor artistic integrity, nor is it about nudity on magazine covers, which for the record I am wholeheartedly for. No, this is about trends. Recently, Ms. Simpson announced that her baby girl will be named...take a breath here...Maxwell.  What!  For thos...

My first meeting with Travis I was exhausted. After a full day of work all I wanted to do was go home and fall into a vodka induced coma, something I had only heard about but never aspired towards. But as I was walking past the pet store I stopped. Something told me to step inside and take a peek at the puppies. And there was this one, the cutest baby husky you ever did see, that made me question whether an alcoholic stupor was all it was cracked up to be. I smiled. Not in an I-can't-live-without-him kind of way, but just enough to ask the man behind the counter how much he was. Without answering my query, the pet store guy--a slightly greasy man who I'll name Serge--asked me to step into one of the back rooms telling me he would bring the husky to me. Then, when the blue-eyed bundle of fluff was in my arms, Serge whipped out an Instamatic and snapped our picture. After flapping it about for the allotted amount of time, Serge then handed the partially developed, somewha...

Reading the newspaper today, my husband came across a  Los Angeles Times article  in which the Parents Television Council, a conservative watchdog group, has been counting the number of times penis  and vagina  have been used in network prime time television. The usage of these words, we are told, has escalated dramatically over the past ten years, which prompted PTC president, Tim Winter, to say, "It's a broader reflection of the progression of raunch." The progression of raunch? The utterances of penis  and vagina  from our lips is raunch? Now, I don't know about other parents, but in our house we don't use the colloquial pee pee  and va jay jay . We labels it as we sees it.  It's big p and capital v all the way. Consequently,  penis  and vagina  are said quite frequently, and as the children have gotten older these two choice anatomical sobriquets have only gained momentum, quite possibly making ...

So many arbitrary ideas, from Ben Affleck's Oscar win (?) to honkeys once again wanting to use the N word (??!?), skittering around in my head like evasive, one-winged butterflies. And it seems if I can catch just one of these lopsided lepidopterans, I'd be off and running to write my next entry/script/book/opus. RANDOMNESS... I forbid for it to be a curse, so, here goes... A lot has transpired as of late. I handed in my piece to The G Man Magazine, the online magazine I've been writing for. It's about (surprise) my life as a gay parent, and contrary to political vitriol it's really quite unremarkable, and not scourge like at all. In it, I rant--you know how much I love to rant--interspliced with anti gay marriage quotes from the Republican presidential hopefuls (those who've both fallen and are still standing). The G Man Magazine will be subscription based this go around, hopefully putting a shekel or two into my pocket. I'll provide more info to you as...

Days 2 & 3: Rockefeller Center and NYFD It seems my days leading up to Christmas were a delicate balance between enjoying the very adult New York I remembered while searching desperately for the kid-friendly New York that would keep my children from throwing themselves in front of subway trains. Now, I'm not saying there isn't anything for little ones to do in the Big Apple, but when I typed children's activities NYC  (or some similar prompt) in the Google search box it seemed as if the same ten things kept popping up, most of which were seasonal, and I was in the wrong season.  The tree at the Americana in Glendale, CA with 15,000 twinkling lights, 10,000 ornaments and a superimposed Kringle Sebastian and Maxwell may have bah humbugged the Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum ( refer to last entry ), but it was a new day, the sky had cleared and I was determined to impress my kids with the Christmas tree of all Christmas trees. That's right, ...

My husband taught me to enjoy free stuff .  Whether at a fudge counter in Solvang or a sex shop in Sausalito I have heard him query, "Could I get a sample of that?" This is always delivered with a smile, usually with a flirty air, and people seem to be attracted to and then comply with what I used to think was an unreasonable demand. And Michael is so good at flirt-asking  that not only does he secure the taste or spritz, but I have seen him walk away with free bars of designer soap and the occasional complimentary glass of Pol Roger Champagne. Now, I'll be honest, his unabashed groveling shamed me for a while, but over the years my position has softened and I have learned to enjoy the gratis  whatchamajigger every now and again. While maintaining this blog, I have been offered free stuff from time to time, most of which I've turned down. (Although there was that extra large mommy t-shirt that looked like a extra small leotard on me...not a pretty sight.) But befo...