Homer'sWorld

Well the weather is sure nice here in Tucson, it is spring-like and the daffodil would have bloomed in my back garden except Henny-Penny ate it. I am certain it was delicious. She likes to eat some of the kitchen scraps, especially lettuce. But she doesn't like asparagus, perhaps because it makes things smell bad afterwards.

Meanwhile, Snowball chewed through the wires for my Ipod headset. He still has his baby teeth, I think. They are sharp but when he play bites he is careful not to hurt me.

I am thankful Mummy is here because they are still having blizzards in Michigan. She sits on the front porch knitting and reading her mystery books. She is pleased that she is so tan.

Two more of the blogs that I have been reading since 2003 or 2004 have ended in the last few days. I was telling Jimbo I feel so old now. Get off the lawn you little brats!

Mummy wanted to go to the Reid Park Zoo and yesterday our attempts to go were thwarted by a horrific accident right outside the entrance, so we went to the knitting store instead.

We were successful this morning.

























Rhino and albino peacock.

It is a small zoo, mainly focusing on the usual animals (zebra, giraffe, lion, tiger, polar bear, rhino). With a few interesting birds thrown in. The zoo is adjacent to a large park and someone was having a walk-a-thon, complete with throbbing disco music, which did not add to the zoo atmosphere.

Polar bear.

There are two elephants, both of which seemed to have emotional problems. There are supposed to be getting a larger enclosure soon.
























Giraffe.

We ran into Mark, Elinore, Dottie, and Alandra- very typical to see people I know out and about.
























Mummy.

When we came home I made Mummy potato salad for lunch.

Post 1848. Frustrating time, weather is so nice and I'm stuck indoors. I'd take a day off and laze about my house and do yardwork, but with Mummy here it wouldn't feel like a vacation day. So I go to work, which in some way is a relief because the computer at home is acting up very, very badly and may need to be replaced. Our computer guy at work is going to replace the super noisy fan and attempt to figure out why it is soooooo slow.

I have an appointment with my handsome eye doctor to get the old eyes checked. I need new glasses- tired of switching between reading and regular glasses, and the regular ones are badly scratched. I think it is time for bifocals.

And so on.

Snowball has decided to become a teenager. He gets up in the middle of the night to find things to play with- computer wires, my reading glasses, my Ipod, you get the idea. I have to put all of the funnest things into my gymbag and zip it shut, because otherwise he sticks his little furry paw inside to drag said fun things out and throw them onto the floor. When he isn't doing this he is trying to chase Joey around the house. At least he understands the word "NO!"

On Sunday morning Henny-Penny squawked super-loud and I ran outside and found her very flustered. She ran up to me and stood there, looking around. So I picked her up and we went and sat somewhere safe until she calmed down. Last night she was very curious as Forrest tinkered with his new old upright piano. She is musically inclined.

At work I am looking at broken dishes and figurines from the 1930s and 1940s. I also toured a building built in 1875 and pointed out that the interior plastered ceilings were not from the 1880s, as was thought, since the nails used in the lath were machine-made, which indicates they were manufactured after 1891. I am filled with this sort of arcane knowledge.

My mother.

























Mummy.

- when I was a little boy I had ferocious growing pains, my hips and knees aching tremendously. I would lie in bed crying and Bub (my now-Amish brother) would get up from his bed and go find Mama and she would bring me a glass of water and half an aspirin and that is one of the most comforting memories I have.

- encouraged me to read and read and read. I am the person I am today because she wanted me to go to college and become whatever I wanted to be

- when I told her I was gay she asked me if I was happy and when I told her I was she accepted me. She is still surprised at times that most of my friends are gay, and I am surprised she doesn't catch on, but then she lives a somewhat sheltered life.

- I have been spoiling her rotten, cooking good meals for her and taking her to do things. She has been having a good time here, but always in the back of my mind is the worry that she is almost 77 and has health issues.

Everyone is a critic. The magic of the internet is that you can find out the opinions of total strangers, many of whom are completely anonymous or people you are unlikely to ever meet in person.

According to the scale this morning I weigh 218 pounds. I am also 45 years, 7 monhs, and 4 days old. So yeah, some people consider me fat and old. And are kind enough to tell you this. They are also kind enought to tell you that your silk jacket from Hong Kong, a fun piece of clothing I drag out of the closet for very special occasions, is "A piece of tacky kitsch orientalism masquerading as taste."

Back in 2003, before I started this blog, I helped put together a museum exhibit at the Historical Society here in Tucson. It was a big event attended by the mayor and other important people. Yes, I know we are a little town to some, filled with people who don't know the right things about the right things. But still, I decided to have fun and I wore my silk jacket, crafted by M. K. Loo of the Peninsula Hotel Arcade in Hong Kong. Numerous ill-informed individuals, including the mayor of Tucson, were amazed that I had such an interesting and fun piece of clothing and I was asked to pose for pictures with the elite of Tucson. But since they didn't know the right things about fashion, and I was slimmer and younger back then, it was all a big mistake.

I was already trending toward a bad mood this morning because of a crappy article in the local "newspaper" (see, I can be a critic too). But being told you are fat and old and that you and your mother "look like joyless refugees from a Diane Arbus photo-shoot" and then discovering that Ms. Arbus was known "for her portraits of people on the fringes of society, such as transvestites, dwarfs, giants, prostitutes and ordinary working class citizens, in unconventional poses and settings" made me feel really, really special. I admit, I had to find out who Ms. Arbus was, since I am culturally ignorant.

So yes, we are all critics in one way or the other. I mostly tell people positive things, because that is the way my personality works, although I recognize I could improve myself in that regard. In any case, it always surprises me what total strangers will share with you.

I had that dream again. I forgot to drop the math class that I didn't go to, and it is the end of the semester. I'm going to flunk the class! When I woke up I had that anxious few moments of trying to figure out, was it real? I'm sure there is some psychological reason I still have this dream, 17 years after I finished grad school.

I've spent the last few days fitting together broken pots from a 1,500 year old pithouse. I'm trying to figure out how many pots were in the house when it was abandoned. The pots are all smashed into many pieces, and I sit on the floor of my office with a roll of masking tape and tape the joins together, eventually the smaller pieces get bigger and bigger until at last I have enough of a pot that we can measure it, draw a profile, and put the pieces back in the bag. None of the pots are complete enough to glue together, which is just as well as they take up more storage space at the museum that way and the museum is running out of room for the collections.

What to get for lunch? I'm going to Trader Joe's and I wonder if Jason, the uber-hot employee, will be there. Jimbo would swoon if he saw this man. It about broke my heart when I a wedding ring appeared on his hand.

On Saturday Richard and his handsome beau Hiram came over and photographed Mummy and I.
























I wore the beautiful silk jacket from Hong Kong that my friend John gave me once on a cool New Year's Eve.

























I convinced Mummy to put it on too.




















I wore my reading glasses because I like them better. I think Mummy will be surprised at how the pictures came out, although she will likely say that she looks "old." She is like me and does not particularly feel her age- at almost 77 she still thinks of herself as being younger.

All photos by Richard Whitmer.

So yeah, Snowball has decided to stay.

Blurry Brady.
























Brady.

You can't even see all those wrinkles, can you? We went to a fund raising event for the non-profit I am a member of. The food was good, the mariachi band was excellent, and the cannon made a big boom. I was pleased that the turn out was so good, despite the wretched economy.

Tomorrow morning I am cleaning house. The cats are shedding and with that comes the hairball barfs. I keep finding dried up puddles in strange places, and this morning Puff vomited right on my bed as I ran in trying to get him to get off the bed. Nice.

In case you were wondering, Arizona state representative Frank Antenori (R) voted on several anti-abortion bills here in Arizona because there is "a duty to protect either our wives or our daughters from making decisions that may come back to haunt them further down the road in their lives."

Those poor broads and gals, they are sooooo stupid that they shouldn't be allowed to make any decisions about their own bodies.

Meanwhile, the Republican party in this state is cutting education funding, pre-school funding, pre-natal healthcare, children's healthcare, etc., etc.

Even Mrs. Kravitz would be shocked at how Republican men view women in this state.

Henny-Penny would like to be a house chicken.

























Joey watches.

She watches Mummy and I through the windows. If she sees a door open, she comes and takes a look.


























She is used to being inside because every night I go and take her off the windowsill she likes to sit on and bring her inside for a few minutes before she gets locked up in the laundry room, where she has a blue towel she likes to sit on.




















Who knew a chicken could be so much fun?

In other news, Mummy asked if we could go watch the Lipizzaner Stallions and what she wants, she gets, so that is how I am spending the afternoon. Really.

If I go on a hike with you in the desert, you have to pose next to a saguaro with your hands up.

























Larry, saguaro cactus, and Forrest.

Post 1833. Last night I made spinach, pine nut, and Mexican soft cheese enchiladas for dinner, along with wild rice, yellow squash, salad, and gluten-free brownies. Larry and Forrest came to dinner with Mummy and I and afterwards we hung out for awhile. Henny-Penny came in for a visit (she sat on Forrest's lap for a while), and Puff, Joey, and Snowball climbed up on laps for attention.

Today I am at work looking at broken bits of 1920s-1930s dishes. I had bad headache when I awoke and made the mistake of taking a heavy-duty painkiller. I am feeling very disoriented and unproductive as a result.

These are the mundane details of my life. If I didn't write them down I would forget them. One hundred years from now no one will probably remember much about me, other than a few archaeologists and genealogists. I wonder if my blog will be floating around in cyberspace and someone will come across it and read what I had for dinner on 5 March 2009 and wish they had been there with us, mostly because the food was good and the company was better and Henny-Penny was very, very entertaining.

I confess, I really hate Twitter and I wish people would return to blogging and telling stories rather than telling me that they "hate their job" or "have a meeting to go to" or "I'm going to the gym."

These things bore the fuck out of me.

I cannot watch the California Supreme Court proceedings because it induces feelings of great rage toward that one certain judge and that pervert Kenneth Starr, who cares more about Bill Clinton's pecker than Hillary ever did.

The more I hear of religious fanatics babbling about the end of the world if fags get hitched, the more I wish the fucking pretend Tribulation would happen and they would just fucking disappear and leave me in peace. Except I don't believe in fairy tales and pardon me if I am wrong, the Tribulation is not even mentioned in the Bibble.

If you add an extra "b" to Bible, it looks very silly. Bibble.

The Benadryl is still bothering me, if you hadn't noticed.

I'm twittering on Blogspot!

I better not run into Kenneth Starr in a dark alley.

I am in a foul mood at this very moment.

Good lord. I shouldn't have taken that Benadryl.

How's your recession going?

- I am hearing of more and more people losing their jobs. At the moment my job appears safe, but who knows.

- The statecut 1.6 billion this fiscal year. They expect to cut another 2 or 3 billion next year. Most of the budget cuts are directed toward education, healthcare, and parks. It truly appears that the goal of the fundamentalist Christian Republicans in the state House and Senate is to stop funding public education in this state. One was quoted as saying, "Education does not create jobs."

- The Republicans just cut 250 million in business property taxes. The governor has proposed a special election to raise the state sales tax, thereby targeting poorer people. The average Arizona resident pays 2.5 percent income tax. I would rather pay more income tax to keep people employed, than to pay the current income tax and have the state use it to pay for unemployment.

- Housing prices have dropped enormously. Foreclosures are rising. If you lose your job, the maximum monthly unemployment benefit is $960 a month. I imagine as more jobs are cut, we will see many more foreclosures. Actually getting unemployment if you lose your job is difficult- according to a friend, they don't answer the phones, they don't return emails, and the lines are horrendous.

- Instead of focusing on monetary problems, many of our state legislators are pushing for anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws. Jan Brewer, the new governor, will likely support these.

So yeah, things suck in Arizona right now.

Not very tame-worthy. Today at work an adult bobcat walked past my window.

























Bobcat, you'll have to click on the picture to see it.

I alerted the rest of my room and then the entire office via the intercom, so about half of my co-workers got to see it too. Very exciting.