Homer'sWorld

Magic panties. The more I think about the Mormon church funding the anti-gay marriage battles, the angrier I get. Did you know that another word for "Mormon" is "Hypocrite." The members of this church had to flee the eastern United States and found the state of Utah because of their polygamous marriage beliefs. Of course, later on, the leader of the church had one of those revelations and they denouced polygamy, although various offshoots of the church still marry grandpas to teenage girls quite regularly. Let's not forget the racist history of this church either. A magic revelation in the 1970s, taking place when the church had tapped out sources for white converts, magically allowed people with darker skins to be acceptable. Gee, thanks white elders!!!

Let's list some of the stupid beliefs the Moron Church has:

- golden tablets no one else saw but Joseph Smith.
- The resulting dull as fucking dirt Book of Mormon.
- Pretend Jesus wandering around Mesoamerica.
- Baptism of dead people.
- certain men get to become gods on their own planets.
- my favorite, Mormon underpants.

It is considered poor taste to talk about these rags, but since when did I have good taste? Look, here's a picture of the "style" the church allowed in the 1970s. You won't see such hot panties and bra sets in the Victoria Secret catalogue!

Mormon underpants.

Special symbols are supposed to protect people from harm. The most pious Mormons never fully remove their garments, they take sponge baths and fuck each other wearing them. Nice!!!

So yeah, my opinion of Mormons is pretty low right now and it isn't going to change until their leader has once of his timely revelations that being a faggot is dandy. Lord knows, I've met a lot of gay Mormons in my time. None of them were wearing their Mormon underpants because the church had kicked them out. That's family values for you!!!

Looky-loo, my hand appears on Cute With Chris!

I really want to thank people for helping out with the Bean Cake jar problem- I'll be writing more about that later next week.

Translation help? Anyone read Chinese?

Bean cake jar.

The drawing is of a glass jar from a early 20th century outhouse used by workers at a Chinese laundry here in Tucson. I'm trying to find someone to translate the Chinese characters for me.

My house feels cold tonight, the first time since Spring. I guess it is finally cooling off and pretty soon I'll have to pull out the space heaters.

Mummy is coming in January for two months. She wanted to stay in Michigan for Holiday so she could see my oldest nephew, who is 29 and off finishing a PhD at Virginia Tech. When Mummy gets here I'll probably go crazy cooking gluten free. That will be interesting.

I was going to say something nasty about the Mormons, but who cares. They wear magic underpants and can get married to dead peoples. Enough said.

So what should I make Forrest for his upcoming 30th birthday meal?

Well Obama won and I am happy with that. But whatever happiness I felt has been countered by the anti-gay marriage amendment passing here in Arizona and elsewhere. The Mormon and Catholic Churches funded the advertising campaigns here. I bet the Morons will be surprised when they discover that their attempt to buy some conservative Christian legitimacy fails, because the other Christian cults think the Mormons are nasty, make-believe Christians (but really, what's the difference?).

One aspect of the election being over is that suddenly I don't have to fret about it, obsessively checking political websites, and this frees up more time for other things, like studying variations in male human anatomy and baking lemon meringue pies.

"I will not have hate in my neighborhood," I told her. On the way to the supermarket to buy frozen spinach and a parsnip I saw two "Yes on 102" signs. On the way back I removed one, then went around the corner and removed the other. A Mexican-American woman in her 50s, dyed brown hair, elaborate make-up, driving a huge blue pickup truck unrolled her window.

"Why are you removing those signs?" she asked. I told her. She paused and said, "That's not hate." "Yes it is. I am a gay man. I know that discriminatory laws cause people to commit violence against gay people."

"That's not true, violence happens everywhere," she said. "Listen," I said, "I had a gay friend murdered. I will not have hate in my neighborhood."

She looked at me. "Murder is a sin. Just like homosexuality."

"You're a fucking cunt," I said and then I drove away. This is a shortened version of the conversation.

Yeah, not a nice thing to do. Being told that I am in the same class as murderers, well that set me off. I've never told someone they were a cunt. It is a plain nasty thing to do and something I do not plan on doing again. But you never know, I am so filled with hate toward people who want to deny me my rights, that I actually have brought hate to my neighborhood. Perhaps the "Yes on 102" people have won already, before the votes have been counted.

I am at work and I cannot concentrate. Yesterday I bought Bombay gin for gin and tonics (I had to ask Brian what kind of gin to get, I am very unenlightened about alcohol) and some tequila and mix for margaritas and Sandy, Forrest, and I are probably going to get completely, utterly drunk to celebrate Obama's victory.

However, the voters in Arizona are almost certainly going to approve Proposition 102, which will place a discriminatory amendment in the Arizona Constitution. I'm looking forward to being a second class citizen!!! So glad the Morons, oops I mean Mormons, are attempting to buddy up with the Born-Agains, although I'm pretty sure the B-Agains will still hate them just as much tomorrow as they do today, 'cause everyone knows the Mormons are a bizarre cult and the Born-Agains aren't. Burp.

I am hoping, hoping, hoping that Proposition 8 fails in California. If it does fail I'll at least feel that the $100 I gave them did not go to waste and that as California goes, the rest of the country will eventually go.

So I sit at my desk and "work" while feeling anxious and thankfully there are a couple of meetings to go to so I can escape from my computer and think about something else.

My nice grandmother died unexpectedly in January 1998. I got home from work and there was a message from my sister Susan asking me to call. Nobody was answering the phone at my sisters' or my mother's house- eventually I called my Aunt Janell and she was the one to tell me.

My grandmother's personality is hard to describe. She seemed unemotional to me, except she had a nervous breakdown after my grandfather died- all of her hair fell out. She was thrifty, and read a lot, and had a few values that we disagreed on. Once I was mean to her and told her that since she had never met a Communist she should just shut up about them. She always voted Republican and was her township treasurer for 30 years, always getting the most votes. She would be mortified to know that I have never voted Republican in a presidential election.

When I was in college she gave me $1000 when my student aid was cut and my father was trying to force me to drop out and return home to be a farmer, because that was what he wanted. My mother called me when he wasn't around and told me to ask grandma, and I did and a check was in the mail that day. She also gave me another $1000 so I could have braces and she was proud of my smile afterwards. When I was in graduate school she sent me another couple thousand so I could have emergency surgery (I didn't have insurance). These three instances helped me more than she would ever know- allowed me to attend school, gave me a better self image, and rescued me from a perilous situation. She did similar things for other family members.

In return I always came and stayed with her for several days, several times of the year. While I was there I waited on her and we did things she liked to do- walk through the grocery store, go to the Salvation Army looking for bargains (I still have the wool overcoat she bought me for $10, she loved that it was so inexpensive). I took her to the grocery store the last time I stayed with her and bought her a bottle of wine, because my uncle wouldn't let her have any. She got pretty drunk in front of me, and I was glad she enjoyed herself.

She's been gone for 10 years and I miss her and I still have her phone number memorized but it wouldn't do any good to call her and chat.

I wish I could have been steely enough to give Grandma F's eulogy at her funeral, because the preacher who gave it didn't know anything about her. I listened to Barack Obama talk briefly about his grandmother at a campaign event, and wished I was as eloquent as he was.

Aerial photography. Very early yesterday my co-worker Henry flew over in a helicopter above the site while I posed in pictures for scale. Aerial photographs are useful because they show the relationship of different features, in this case pithouses, to each other. Plus, they are interesting to look at. Click the pictures to make them bigger!


















I'm sitting in the center of some Early Ceramic period (A.D. 50-500) pithouses, with the earlier Early Agricultural period pithouse (the round one) nearby.

Although getting out at the site at 6:30 AM was a drag (I went to bed at 1 AM), I was actually able to finish some forms while I was waiting for the helicopter to show up. Then I did my best Vanna White Archaeologist impressions.


















I'm sitting in a Hohokam pithouse dating to about AD 1150-1300.

Forrest stood on the edge of the bathtub in the cat bathroom and took pictures as Caveman Sandy did a Redneck Zombie makeover on me.
























Looking up at Forrest.

Such an easy costume, merely shred some old clothes and apply lots of blood.




















Attacked by zombies at my cousin-sister's wedding reception at Taco Bell.

I survived a night of partying. I had to get up early this morning and stand next to pithouses as a helicopter flew over and took pictures (I was in them for scale). I hope the stains from the blood makeup are not visible.

Zombies for Obama!

Remember, on Halloween, you must watch Vote for Zombie!!! (Click on PCMP films on the right side, to view the movie).



























I am Cowboy Zombie in this short movie.

Halloween Eve.



















Homer's Jack-O-Lantern, Toothy.


























Sandy's Jack-O-Lantern. the Grim Reaper.

On Tuesday voters in Arizona will probably pass Proposition 102. This will place an amendment in the state's constitution stating "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."

The measure was put on the ballot by 16 state senators, the deciding vote cast by a creep named Tim Bee who represents southern Arizona. He is running for Gabrielle Giffords' congressional seat and was hoping to stir up the Born-Agains to support him. He is not going to win, but his legacy will be this nasty amendment.

The "Yes on 102" campaign is being largely funded by Mormons, Focus on the Family, and the Catholic group Knights of Columbus. Most of the money is from out-of-state. After it passes we will almost certainly see lawsuits to prevent state and local governments from offering domestic partnership benefits, similar to what happened in Michigan.

Arizona has a history of marriage discrimination. Up until 1958 it was illegal for a white/Mexican person to marry a black/Asian/Native American person. The state Supreme Court finally overturned that law.

I guess the people who pushed for this measure can see the future- they knew that younger people increasingly don't care about homosexual marriage. It is much easier to put an amendment into the constitution than it is to remove one.

So there you have it. If a tornado dropped a house on the people who pushed for this measure, I would feel the same way the Munchkins felt, "Ding, dong, and all that." The Christian fundamentalists will be thrilled and then will start planning their next move (my guess, banning adoptions by gays). Sometimes I wonder why they are so consumed with hate for their fellow human beings.

Some artifacts from my recent dig.

In an Early Ceramic period (A.D. 50-600) pithouse we found seven animal bone and two ceramic gaming pieces. These were used to play gambling games by the Native Americans living there. We found scraps of deer bone and some grinding stones in the house, and they may have actually made these inside the house. What is most interesting is that nothing like this has ever been found in the Tucson area (similar ones are found in northern Arizona).



















Gaming pieces (click to enlarge).

In one area we found a depression that had been filled in with trash during the Tanque Verde phase (A.D. 1150-1300). These decorated ceramics were among four shopping bags worth of pottery sherds we found in a 2m by 2 m square area.

Tanque Verde phase pottery.

The designs on pottery changed every 50 to 100 years, which is how you can tell how old they are (based upon radiocarbon dates from other features containing decorated pottery). During the Tanque Verde phase bowls were decorated on both the inside and outside. The designs included a lot of cross-hatching, geometric spirals, and the use of free floating "X" designs (see the right hand side of the bottom middle sherd).

And in other news, I made pizza and went over to John H's house and helped him research his mysterious great-grandmother. We were able to locate an index to a newspaper that reported her obituary, I felt very smart afterwards.

When I was in graduate school, sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, Tony Hillerman came to speak at the Anthropology Department. He was receiving an award from the department (one of his two main characters had a degree from the Arizona State University anthro department) and he gave a short talk. Afterwards there was a book signing and many of the students brought copies of his new book. I was a poor, struggling anthro grad student, living on about $550 a month (rent was $270) so I couldn't afford a new book. Luckily, I had a paperback copy of his most obscure mystery and I took that up for him to sign for my mother. Hillerman looked at me and said, "You are a cheap bastard, aren't you?" and we both laughed. I gave the book to my mother for Christmas (she is a huge Hillerman fan) and she was so excited to have his signature, she didn't care that it was on a worn paperback.

He led a good life and his books opened the world of the Navajo and Hopi to millions of people around the world. I'm glad to have met him for a fleeting moment.

White cake with white frosting. For Patrick's birthday, he asketh and he receiveth.


























Patrick and his cake.

The cake and frosting were not for those on a diet- 4 1/2 sticks of butter and three things of cream cheese were included.

One thin slice and I have a mild sugar buzz. Patrick liked his cake, I'm happy to do something special for a special friend.

So I was driving by the First Assembly of God Church, the one with the recently vandalized sign, and two guys were putting up a banner "Yes on 102" on the side of the church and I turned around, parked, and walked over to them.

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" I told them. "What?" they said. And then I proceeded to ask them why they thought it was alright to discriminate against their fellow tax-paying citizens. The very hot redhead (I've never seen a straight man so perfectly groomed) brought up the Bible as a reason. I asked him he ate seafood and when he said yes, I reminded him that that was banned in Leviticus. I told them that if they were following biblical rules, slavery should be legalized and polygamy.

The redhead then said it was a majority rule issue. I asked him again if it was alright to discriminate against fellow citizens. He seemed to think so. The old geezer started protesting me saying these things and I looked at him and said, "First Amendment rights" and shut him up. I guess speaking to a gen-u-wine faggot probably made him feel a little queasy. No opinions were changed, but it was important to me to confront bigots and let them know my opinion.

If you are religious, don't read beyond this point. I've warned you. Please click on some other link, go look at this cute racecar driver redhead's site, for instance. Again, don't read on because I may hurt your heart a little bit.

Religion is the biggest pile of bullshit. I have no respect for people who fervently believe in make-believe god(s). Yes, it is scary to die and, yes, it is nice to have someone tell you what to think (much easier than thinking for yourself). But grow up. Religion is a bunch of bullshit. Nothing in my life has convinced me that some higher being exists. It is all fear and fear and fear, mostly of death, that drives people to mindlessly believe the garbage that we call religion.

Over the last thousands of years how many gods and goddesses have people worshipped? It must be thousands. And the followers of God X or Goddess Y are/were completely convinced that the faithful believers of God Z are/were utterly, completely fucking wrong. If you don't believe in A or B, or do believe in C.2.b, you are going to fucking hell, to writhe around and burn and fuck who knows what. You have to believe in F and in G.7.b.II to get into Heaven. How could all of those people believe so utterly, thoroughly in Zeus and Athena, and yet they were apparently completely wrong and really, it is some other god that is real.

People have believed so much in particular gods that men have been willing to cut their balls off, drink the pretend blood and eat the pretend flesh of pretend Jesus, and willingly fly airplanes full of screaming people into buildings filled with thousands of people to gain entrance into heaven where they thought they would get to fuck 72 hot virgins. Tell me that isn't fucked. How many millions of people have been killed because of religion? One of the reasons it was so easy for the US to bomb the shit out of Iraq was because Iraq was full of Arab Muslims instead of pious Protestants. And while all of those people were getting blown up and maimed, Christians in the US were protesting abortion clinics because Christians are "pro-life," whatever the fuck that means.

Yes, Jesus was probably a person who lived in Palestine and got himself crucified. As an aside, I can't help wondering if he was so perfect, did he have a perfectly shaped cock? And why am I not being struck by lightning for typing that? I don't believe for a minute in any of the magical powers ascribed in him or in the miracles and images of Didn't-get-her-hyman-cracked Mary that keep appearing on tortillas and lead paint covered bedroom walls. But everytime an image of Mary shows up on a children's crap-covered diaper, thousands of people wander over to see it, take digital pictures of it, and generally think they are better people for doing so.

I feel nothing but disgust over the whole business. And it is a business, The people controlling the secrets (priests, preachers, imams) benefit financially and get a lot of power ordering people to do this and that. The Mormon church, the Catholic church, and the First Assembly of God Church in Tucson are full of people who believe that they are so much better than other people because they believe in their golden tablets and unbroken hymens and that putting "Yes on 102" banners on their walls does not make them bigots.

Fuck, religion is pathetic. Atheists, of course, are superior in every fucking way.

Halloween is a week away and I'm completely not ready. Unlike my neighbors, I haven't hung cobwebs everywhere, placed tombstones and skeletons in my yard, and draped caution tape across my doors and windows. It appears that Ray isn't holding his big party this year, so Sandy and I are apparently going to a smaller party down the street. What to wear? I may go as a redneck zombie, easy to do but guaranteed to not attract any cute redheads, since no one wants to hit on a blood-encrusted mess.

What are you doing for Halloween?

Is it wrong for me to admit that I laughed out loud when I saw the "Yes on 102" (the anti-gay marriage amendment) sign at the church on Broadway Avenue had been defaced with a giant red swastika? I laughed. I was just telling Sandy about the sign, and secretly wished someone would destroy it (it is huge) and someone did. I suppose that particular church's particular version of "God" didn't like that sign and did something about it. And to whoever did it, thanks!

Morning Person or Night Owl? I'm a morning person (Jimbo can verify this). I get up and I'm all sweet and perky (and noisy, Jimbo can verify this). If I stay in bed too long I get terrible back aches, so I get up and do my chores and play on the intertubes and so on.

Back in college I was a night person. Nobody went to bed before 2 AM. The idea of that just seems bizarre a couple of decades later.

So what are you, not-so-gentle readers, AM or PM?

Disclosure: in the last two months I have spent $0 on clothing and $13 on a haircut (the last time I paid someone to cut my hair was in January 2005).

The excavation is completed as of yesterday. I ran around and with the help of Allen and my other crew members, we finished. I was so tired I fell asleep on the couch at 6:30.
























A slab-lined pit, used as an outdoor oven about 700 to 1000 years ago (difficult to see, but it is a little over a foot deep).

Brian was my personal saviour last night. My computer got infected with something called "xp antispyware 2009" and that fucking nasty virus took over my browser and everytime I tried to bring up webpages, it would divert me to something else (especially if I googled anti-virus websites). It also disabled my virus protection programs. No idea how it got onto my computer, or why someone would invent such a shitty thing. With Brian's help, I used Malwarebyte's program and it removed the virus and the annoying pop-ups.



















An Early Agricultural period pithouse (400 BC-AD 50) that was below an Early Ceramic period pithouse (which I posted a picture of a few days back) The black and white stick is one meter long and is used as a scale in our pictures of houses.

I'm taking part of today off to do my own stuff. That includes sending an email to four people who work for the Arizona Daily Star, which today published a full page advertisement paid for by the "Yes on 102" anti-gay marriage amendment people (including the Knights of Columbus).



















Forrest poses in a pithouse.

I actually pay money to get a paper copy of the newspaper- it is one of those pathetic liberal attributes- support the local media. Plus my mother reads it when she is here.

In the email to the executive and managing editors, publisher, and reader advocate, I stated:

I am wondering if your paper would have published a a similar full page ad "Yes on banning interracial marriages!" back in the day when that was the law? I am a gay man who pays taxes, has never been arrested, vote, volunteer, etc- and yet this vile amendment guarantees that I will remain a second class citizen in this state.

I am very angry and questioning why I should continue to subscribe. Can you explain your rational for publishing the ad, which even states that funding came from an out-of-state source.

Let me be clear- if I do not get a personal response to this email explaining why ADS published that ad I will be cancelling my subscription. This last sentence was in bold, just to make sure that it would catch their eye.

Don't get me started on Mormons and the Catholic Church right now. They are the main proponents of these anti-gay amendments. What a joke- right now in northern Arizona a Mormon polygamous sect is busy marrying grandpas to teenage girls as their 14th or 15th wives and then there is the whole "Let's pretend those priests aren't really raping little boys" cover up by the church in this state. "Let's keep marriage simple!" the churches proclaim, while looking the other way.

So Sarah Palin thinks small-town Americans are "Pro-American" and another McCain surrogate says that people who live in rural Virginia are "real Americans."

This idealization of small town America is perplexing to me since I grew up in rural northern Michigan and have lived in small towns in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. In all of these places the jobs suck, the schools suck, there is nothing to do but do drugs and fuck, parents hate higher education because that means their children move away to those awful big cities to look for jobs that actually provide insurance and vacation days. If small town America is so real and fabulous, why are half the towns in North Dakota and Nebraska emptying out and turning into ghost towns?

Gay Pride 08!!! Oh yes, I was full of pride (and two cups of beer) at Tucson's Gay Pride yesterday. It was nice, I said hello to a lot of my peoples, listened to some musics, gave out my number to a cute redhead, hey, it was pride after all!

















Steve and Homer.

I've known Steve since 1986!!! Back in my Ann Arbor days he used to date one of my housemates. Now Steve lives in Tucson and whenever we see each other, we say goofy things and don't act our ages.


















Sandy.

I wonder if straight men ever wear harnesses? They are missing out if they don't, since Sandy got a lot of attention. And who could blame the menz who were admiring his handsomeness?

Sandy's birthday cookies. Although Snickerdoodles won in the popular vote, the electoral college (Sandy) went for Jam Thumbprints.

Blackberry and Apricot Jam Thumbprints.

They were harder to make than I had imagined, sticking to the wax paper that I had lined the baking sheets with. I ate some of the broken ones- yummy!

I thought the archaeology dig was going to be done today, but we have to go back on Monday to finish a few things.
























Allen taking pictures.

We finished a couple of Early Ceramic (A.D. 50-600) or Hohokam (A.D. 800-1300) period pithouses. They are shallow pits cut into the ground, some with postholes where posts once held up the roof.



















Pithouse.

Most of them have a little plastered fire hearth right in front of the entranceway.























Fire hearth.

We had a couple of tours today and during one an archaeologist pointed out that one of them had an earlier pithouse showing up in its floor. It was another round one that dates back to about 2,000 years ago. We are digging half of it and will have that done Monday.




















Another pithouse.

So during the second tour I was showing off a slab-lined cooking pit to 24 7th graders and suddenly I felt something crawling in my pants. A huge black ant had taken a journey into my crotch and as I was explaining life in the past it started biting my penis. Over and over again. Nothing I could do, since I was being asked a lot of questions and could not suddenly run off to scream in agony. So I gamely stood there as Mr. Ant stung me some more. Afterwards my penis burned for about an hour. It was very painful, but I survived.

Since it has decided to get cool here in Tucson, and I can now return to regular baking, and since Sandy is arriving from Australia today and it was his birthday a couple of days back, please vote on what sort of cookies I should make him as a present:

1). Jam thumbprints
2). Chocolate chip cinnamon cookies
3). Oatmeal raisen
4). Snickerdoodles

Remember, your vote counts! Please express yourself in the comment section.

I'm making a practice white cake for Patrick G's birthday. It is baking right now.


























Homer and Puff.

The actual birthday cake has to have white cake with white frosting. The one I am making tonight is going to have lemon curd in the middle, but I need to drive over to Mexican Safeway to get some lemons before it gets made.

Chatted with Mummy on the phone tonight. She is much better since they figured out the celiac disease and she stopped eating wheat products. Someone sent me a gluten free and sugar free cookbook- I need to start practicing recipes from that. Mummy was in good spirits and I could tell she is about back to normal. She'll be here from January to March or possibly early April. That will be very interesting for me.


Later




















White cake with lemon curd.

So today fall arrived in Tucson, I actually felt cold this afternoon sitting out on the patio at the Venture Inn.
























David G.

We talked about disgusting topics like STDs, seamy San Francisco places, and presidential politics.




















Pat and Rick.

I came home and remembered to take another allergy pill. The wind has been blowing hard and it has turned me into a blubbery mess of tears and snot. I will be glad when that stops.

I voted early.


























That One.

Some pictures of me as a child.
























Being naughty, circa 1965.

I am helping Susan brush Daisy at Grandma F's house, 1965.
























Playing in the sand, circa 1966.

So less than a month to go... who is going to win? Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin? I'm waiting for my absentee ballot to arrive.

Vote in the comment section...

I vigorously weeded my front garden, dug up and separated the chive plant that has been there since 1999, and planted a new rosemary, thyme, sage, and chives to go along with the existing rosemary and oregano.



















Before.

It is now ready for winter, when it will supply me with herbs for omelets, quiches, and roasted vegetables.




















After.


The back garden isn't finished yet. I pulled the weeds and the various squash plants that sprouted but never made squashes. I've been dumping my kitchen waste back there and the failed batch of oatmeal cookie dough (as I was pouring the oatmeal into the dough I discovered weevils [yuck!]) is a congealed mess that I decided I would deal with tomorrow.

As I return to my normal spunky self, I found myself doing many things today. I went to the nursery and purchased herbs and flowers, which will be planted tomorrow. I stopped off at Patrick's and gave him lettuce seeds. He'll have to make me a salad sometime. We sat and chatted and then I went to the supermarket and bought cleaning supplies. My two bathrooms are just gross.


So after lunch I had a nap and then I cleaned the cat bathroom. Yuck. Apparently my aim while vomiting on Thursday night wasn't so hot. Oh well, it is now all sparkly and shiny. In a little while I'll wander into my own bathroom and make that something similar.


As I was driving around I noticed lots of businesses closed or closing. And a huge number of homes for sale. So far I don't know anyone who has lost their home, I hope that doesn't change.

October self portrait.

I'm growing my hair out and have a bushy goatee now. I'm trying for the caveman look.

Instead of watching the debates I am having stomach flu and vomiting, body aches, and diarrhea. Or maybe that's just the reaction I get when I see Sarah Palin and hear her voice, which is immensely more nasal and whiney than mine.

I am such a big baby when I am sick and if I didn't think I was contagious I'd demand that my friends come over and swab my forehead with damp towels and rub my calves, which ache so bad. But now that dinner has come up, I am already feeling a bit better and in a little while I take a pill and some ginger ale and see what happens.

"Hey dudes, stop the faggot talk!" I am at my favorite pizza place on 4th Avenue and I've just ordered two slices- black olives and onions on one and artichoke hearts and minced garlic on the other. I give the cute girl behind the counter a $1.50 tip and my bill comes to $6.40. I walk a couple of steps to the counter to grab a napkin and red pepper flakes and parm cheese.

At the window a pair of late teenagers are talking very loudly. Very loudly. Every other sentence is, "He's a faggot," or "That's such a faggot thing to do." One was in line in front of me. Since we are humans, we both ordered food and beverages. Both guys look alike, that scruffy hair that seems to be in style, white tee shirts with something printed on them, bit black lumps piercing their ear lobes.

I walked a couple of steps toward them and in a very loud voice tell them those six words. They look instantly mortified and both blurt out, "Sorry!" I nod and return to the counter for the red pepper flakes that I like to sprinkle on my pizza. The three or four tables of other people, people who didn't care that the kids were so loudly and obnoxiously using the f.a.g.g.o.t. word, looked at me curiously.

I waited for my pizza and when it came it was good. I'm glad that I spoke up, but wished I had added a second sentence, "I'm a faggot and you are offending me." I'm not willing to be silent anymore.

I have many blisters on my hands from digging yesterday. I am running an excavation about 2,000 ft southeast from my house, clearing an area where large trees will be planted and buildings constructed at a park.

We are finding many pithouses, dwellings occupied by Native Americans from about 400 B.C. to A.D. 1300. The earliest is a large round house (about 4 m across) and dates from about 400 B.C. to A.D. 50. It has the typical ring of postholes around the inner edge of the house, each of which once held a small sapling bent to formed a domed roof covered with thatching and mud. Also present in the house are a large upright stone on the left that may be a post support and a grinding slab on the floor a few feet to the east. The center of the house had a thick area of ash and burnt earth where the hearth was, used to heat the house and cook food.



















Allen is mapping the pithouse (click to make bigger). The line in the middle is where we removed a modern tree root.

A nearby house dates to the timespan when ceramic vessels were first made in large numbers. In one house we found two or three large seed jars, which were basically a globe with the top sliced off. In the picture below you can see a grinding stone (a mano) and a round ceramic lid for one of the seed jars, broken into pieces but reconstructible.
























Artifacts dating from about A.D. 50 to 600.



Below is a seed jar found at another site from this time period, an excavation my company did in the 1990s. You can see the top of the pot, where the round ceramic disk could be placed and sealed with clay, preserving seeds or food from exposure to the elements, insects, or rodents. Before these pots were made, people stored food in below ground pits. Often the food in these pits was damaged by water or eaten by burrowing mice or rats. The development of the large storage jars helped insure people had food to eat and seeds to plant for the next growing season.
















Seed jar at left, photo by Arizona State Museum.

I have one more week and a lot of work to do, I'm sure I'll have a few more blisters by the time we are done. And that concludes today's anthropological lesson.

As of today, my 401K is worth 75 percent what it was about six months ago. I lost about eight percent in value just today. The average price of a home in Tucson has dropped from 228k to 185k so far (19 percent). I'm certainly glad I'm not planning on retiring for 25 years or so.

My mortgage is with Washington Mutual and of course that company had so many fucked up loans they sold themself to some other soon-to-go-bankrupt company. When I got my home equity loan in 2003 they claimed over and over again that it was fixed rate. As it turned out, they lied (it was fixed rate for only the first year). In teeny, tiny print on page 15 or so it stated that.

I'm a reasonably smart person, and I was fooled by crappy business practices. I can understand why so many other people are having problems with loans they can't afford due to hanky panky by lenders. I'm not a business wizard, but it seems that this mess would be at least partly fixed if Congress and the lenders could agree to reduce interest rates for a large number of people to at least a reasonable level, and hopefully reduce the number of foreclosures. Lenders would still make some money and home values would stabilize. Perhaps someone can tell me if I am completely idiotic (Palinesque!) about this.

Brian came down to visit on Saturday and we did enjoyable things, despite the oppressive allergies which have made my eyes weepy and nose runny for two weeks. I have been taking over the counter crap and sometimes it works and sometimes it makes me so stoned I just lie in bed with the cats and wish it was nighttime so I could sleep.

Last night was Amazing Race over at David G's pad. I made chocolate pudding that Ms. Zoe said
"It tastes grainy" and yes, something was a little off, but not off enought for me to not have a bowl for breakfast. It has eggs and milk and vitamins, so why not? To make up for that, I had a bowl of no-name cheerios afterwards. I need to remember, no-name cheerios taste like cardboard, don't buy them again.

My favorite donut: Simple- the plain ones with sugar sprinkled on top.

What is your favorite donut?

Oh goodness. John McCain hasn't voted in the Senate since April 9. He's missed 400+ of the 600+ votes in the Senate in the last couple of years. And suddenly he has to run back to DC, reschedule his debate, Palin doesn't get to debate next week, etc. I guess this is what looking "Presidential" is supposed to look like. I guess being "Vice-Presidential" means hiding from the press and only posing for photo-ops with world leaders who think she's real pretty.

Good lord it is hot here in Tucson- 100 degree days and I drink water and more water and never have to pee which isn't a good thing. Out at the dig site I had to drag the firehoses around and squirt water onto the dusty dirt to make it muddy dirt, thereby doing my part to improve the air quality of the county. Wrestling with the firehouse is a muddy, pinchy business and leaves you exhausted afterwards. I like firemen, I just don't want to be one (but I would date one!).

The local Catholic Bishop wrote an editorial stating that support for the anti-gay marriage amendment to the Arizona constitution was not discrimination. He used a lot of obtuse language to claim that he loved faggots and dykes, but not enough to allow them to have civil rights. Bishop Kicanas, by the way, got to be bishop because the previous bishop let lots of horned-up priests stick their cocks into little boys, moving them from parish to parish when the parishioners got tired of using crowbars to separate the priests from their childrens' buttocks. Bishop Kicanas and his lousy church have no moral authority, in my opinion, and besides, why should we respect the opinions of unnaturally celibate (hehehehe!) men about marriage? It's not like they are ever allowed to have a natural or unnatural relationship with another adult. I guess that's why the Catholic church in Tucson had to declare backruptcy because of the priest-pervert lawsuits.

Tell me a secret.

My secret: sometimes when I get really upset about something I drag out my old teddy bear (Smokey the Bear) and he hangs out with me for awhile.

Because I know nothing about economics, I made chocolate pudding. From scratch.

People are always surprised when I tell them I make desserts from scratch (except pie crust). But honestly, it takes only a few minutes more than those cruddy mixes filled with dried goop and festering chemicals. And the desserts taste much better, especially the lemon meringue pies.


























Chocolate pudding.

I was going to write something about the bailout of Wall Street, but honestly I do not understand all of the issues involved except it seems we will be protecting the wealth of rich people yet again.

So instead, I am going to enjoy a lovely bowl of chocolate pudding.

My father died 12 years ago today. I was in Athens, Greece standing in the basement of a dark gay bar when it happened.

Daddy had a stroke in 1991 and was partially paralyzed. He had gradually gone almost blind, a side-effect of 14 years of diabetes. The last time I talked to him on the phone he assured me he was going to live a while longer, "The doctor just gave me 100 days worth of pills."

It was my first trip overseas. I went to visit Yorgos, arriving in Athens on September 18th. Everything was strange and exotic and my travel journal is filled with observations about how different things were, observations that I cringe to read now. On that Friday, the 20th, Yorgos and I walked downtown from his apartment, passing the original Olympic stadium. We had lunch at McDonald’s (Yorgos loves American food) and I have the placemat from that meal stuck into my journal, in Greek with occasional English words sprinkled in.

The previous June I had flown back to Michigan and driven to my parent’s house in the upper peninsula. My brother had announced that he wasn’t going to run the family dairy farm and that he wasn’t going to run the buffalo farm either. At 35, he had suddenly developed a backbone. My parents had to move in with my mother’s mother. My father was distraught, it must have been embarrassing for him at his age to live with his mother-in-law. But what else could he do? For the last five years he had been an invalid and when the farm sold, there was about $17,000 left over. $17,000 after 22 years of work. He had never been a good businessman.

That afternoon Yorgos and I walked around the base of the Acropolis. There were excavations underway, but no opportunities to see them up close. In one spot the ground was covered with pottery sherds and roofing tile fragments. I had once wanted to be a classical archaeologist, but my brain was not wired for foreign languages. It was certainly wired for foreign men, I was busy admiring all of the swarthy, hairy Greek men. Yorgos suggested that we go out to some gay bars that night.

My father had not been feeling well that day. A couple of days earlier a friend had stopped by and afterwards that friend had called another friend and told him he needed to go see my father, that he wasn’t going to last long. Daddy had been depressed since moving in with my grandmother, and I suppose his health was deteriorating, although my mother and sisters hadn’t noticed.

So Yorgos and I had gone out to a gay bar in Athens, late that night, many times zones away from Michigan. The second bar was in the basement of a building- dark, a backroom that men kept wandering in and out of. I stood next to Yorgos and on the wall opposite up a projector projected porn, a movie with black men, titled "Black & Hung 2." I was surprised to see that someone had subtitled the porno. Yorgos was helpful and translated the captions, "Homer, the black man is going to dance.... Homer, the black man is getting excited and now he is going to masturbate... Homer, he is coming!"

Back in Michigan it was early afternoon and my father wanted to take a nap and my mother took him to the bedroom. Long ago it had been my grandfather’s, I remember sitting on his bed as Grandpa dressed and asking him why he wore boxer shorts instead of the kind of underpants I wore. Such a strange memory. My father sat on the edge of the bed and without a word suddenly fell onto the floor. My mother tried to get him up, but he was not responsive.

My mother does not react well in crisis situations. Calling 911 is generally not an option, I’m not sure if it is because of denial or because it is embarrassing or if she just doesn’t think of doing so. So on that afternoon she picked up the phone and called my brother, who worked on a farm nearby, and asked him "Your father has fallen down, can you come get him up?"

My brother, not yet Amish, drove down the road to Grandma’s house, which was perched on the hill at the corner of Long Lake and Zimmerman Roads. He took one look at Daddy, who was busy turning blue in the face, and told my mother, "He’s dead." Afterwards, someone called 911 and the paramedics and a police sheriff came and they tried to revive him, but he was very dead.

We walked home from the bar sometime after 2 AM, I hadn’t met anyone, as I noted in my journal, I was being shy. I went to bed not knowing that thousands of miles away my mother was taking my father’s favorite crazy quilt to a funeral home, for some reason she wanted him to have it when he was cremated.

My father hated funerals, and so my mother decided that they would have a party instead on that Sunday. So they arranged family pictures up on the fireplace mantle and dozens of people crowded into Grandma’s house while in Greece I drove with Yorgos, Filios, and Mike to the town of Nauplio on election day. My mother had decided that I was to remain in the dark- she didn’t want to ruin my trip to Greece. Even if I had known, there wouldn’t have been time to get back to Michigan for the wake party.

On October 1st, eleven days later, I arrived back in Tucson and my roommate Randy picked me up at the airport. He asked me if I had a good trip and I said yes, it wasn’t until we got into his car that he suddenly got serious. "Do you know?" he asked. "Know what?" "Oh Homer, your father died while you were gone, he said. All I could say was "Oh!"

Well, I don't feel any different. Thank you muchly for all of the nice birthday wishes. I don't know why turning 45 seemed like it was going to be such a trauma (perhaps because 45 is closer to 50 than 40?).

What else? Everything else seems the same- cats throwing up left and right, it is still hot, I come home from the dig site covered in dirt. I am encouraged that Obama seems to be doing better now that the hype over Mrs. Unqualified has died down. It helps that McStupid has no clue about the economy. A co-worker and I tried to think of something positive he has done for Arizona and couldn't think of anything.

Well, I just checked my 401K balance. It is just magic money anyways, and it is now down about 25 percent from what it was last year. That's super great, I'll just work another decade or so.

Version 45


























5:42 A.M.

By the way, I'm still officially 44 until about 8:15 AM Eastern time on Tuesday.

This morning I had a dream I went back to Couzens Hall, the dormitory where I lived at the University of Michigan for three years (Urspo and I lived there at the same time, but didn't know each other). When I close my eyes I can still everything there- I wonder if they still have the useless phone booths in my hall or if they figured out what to do with that space.

That got me to thinking, What if I could go back in time and run into myself at age 18 in 1982. What advice would I give myself?

- get braces a couple of years earlier- that was a major self esteem boost
- go to the gym and ask someone how to lift weights. I would have had an awesome body
- invest a $1000 in this new company called Microsoft
- don't take Italian 101 or Spanish 102.

If you could go back to age 18, what advice would you give yourself?

My birthday wish:


























Hair.

Preferably back on top of my head.

A revelation, I found my reading glasses. They had been missing since May or so and I looked fricken everywhere. And suddenly they were on the floor of the backseat of my car. I had even looked under the seats before. How did they get there. I dunno. I'm happy there are back, that saves me some money which I will put to good use (presents for Mummy including a gluten-free care package, for the No on anti-gay marriage amendment, and for that hair transplant).

The doctors have finally figured out what has been wrong with Mummy- celiac disease. For some reason her body decided that she can no longer eat anything with gluten- anything with wheat, barley, or rye. She is already diabetic, so this just means she will have to be even more careful about what she eats. And when she comes visit in January, I will have to be very inventive about how I cook- lots of potatoes in the future, and other vegetables. No grilled cheese sandwiches unless I can find special bread. No processed foods, since wheat products show up everywhere as weird ingredients.

Apparently there are a number of products manufactured for people allergic to gluten- special flour, cereals, etc. I will now have to hunt them down.

Two toads today! Tonight I stepped outside onto my vintage brick patio, and there was one of the toads chirping away. I could hear it, but not see it, but anyways, I was very happy to hear that.

My archaeology project is ongoing, but the difficulty in finding people to work for me is worrisome. I have to be done on October 6, and have only half of the people I need. Once the backhoe is done though, I will be able to dig- you should see me throw dirt around. It's amazing!

Thanks, but no thanks! Dear Mr. Obama, can you just have Biden call the Gov of Upper Freeze-your-balls-off-istan a Fucking Liar. Every time I hear her whiney voice say that super stupid lie, makes me want to shout at the radio, "Shut the fuck up you stupid fuck!" And that is what I do when I hear Bush's nasal whine. All respect I might have had for the sorry oldster McCain went away forever yesterday with his pervy sex ad. I called McCain's office today to ask when was the last time he had voted in the Senate- they didn't know and then they got downright bitchy with me for asking.

Toad alert! I found another Great Plains toad today and brought it home for my garden. That makes nine! I hope they are all snug and happy in their little burrows, safe from bulldozers.

Brady got a new computer and the Spore game and I played with it. Unforts, his sound wasn't working and so it got tedious after a while. I do have screen envy, a 25-inch screen makes everything look bigger.

What should I do for my birthday next week?

Last pool volleyball for the summer.



















Photo by Patrick.

Even in the desert summer has to end sometime. So we got together at Richard's house and played one last set of raucous games.



















Photo by David B.

We have improved greatly over the summer, sometimes it took forever for a point to get made. I'm sore today from jumping and lunging for that little plastic ball.



















Patrick and Homer contemplate the end of pool volleyball for 2008.

I made a chocolate cake for Richard and everyone said it was very, very good. I was less pleased with the three bean and corn salad I made, but people claimed it was delicious. I am a very picky cook.

Chocolate mayonnaise cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting.

The cake and frosting were very easy to make, I'll be adding this to my regular desserts that I concoct for special occasions.

Toads in a bucket! As the backhoe scrapes the ground at the site I'm working on, occasionally it cuts into a toad hole and out pops a toad (or in one case, two!). I catch them and put them in a bucket. Today I found six. It is amazing that they aren't squashed by the backhoe bucket.
























One, two, three, four, five.

After catching the two from one hole, the backhoe operator Dave scraped again and pulled up the dirt. I was looking into the bucket and heard him shout out, "Oh shit!"

I turned and there dangling from his bucket was one long snake. It was black with thin blueish-black stripes. About three feet long. It too had escaped unhurt and slithered out of the dirt and dropped onto the backdirt pile. I admit it, when I first saw it I screamed like a girl. It was that big. It slithered over the pile of dirt and went off into the weeds, looking for a new home.






















The biggest toad.

I brought six toads home and put them into my garden. I think they have already burrowed into the ground. I need to do a little research to find out what their natural history is like, so I don't harm them with the plants in that area.

I had to attend a meeting so I missed HateFest 2008. I've heard a couple of the nasty, sarcastic things Mrs. Palin said. I guess when you are a Born Again you can lie, lie, lie all you want.

But enough of that. I have a new dig going on and the hardest thing is the damn firehose that I have to use to wet down the backdirt piles. It is four-inches-thick and heavy and when you turn the hydrant on, it twitches and bucks and pinches. I'm covered in mud by the time I'm done. I had to stop by my house and change my shirt because I was so messy.

Oh God, CBS news is blaring her whiney voice. I'm going to switch the telly and watch a movie tonight.

But first, I'm stopping by the Obama website and donate some money.

And now for something different. Pizza toppings, what are your two most favorites?

Mine: black olives and red onions. Just thinking about a slice of that kind of pizza makes my stomach growl. GRRRRRRooowllll!

"Your sister says that it's the first time a candidate has been just like us," my mother said.


The more I hear about her, the less I like the Wicked VP of the North. She's a liar, mean to her employees, wants to tell other people how to live their private lives, and I'm not sure so sure about those much-vaunted Traditional Family Values.


The funda-mental-cases are having orgasms about how great it is the the 17-year-old is going to get married to that young stud. It seems to me that 17-year-old girls should be focusing on the things that 17-year-old girls typically do (get an education, slumber parties, visits to the mall) instead of being forced to marry so that Mommy can be VP. Very curious to see how this all plays out.


Ohmigosh, allergy alert. Something is making my nose run and eyes itch. It has been so wet here that it could be anything.


Started a new archaeology project today. The most exciting thing I found was a cute green toad, which I rescued and brought home and put in my little garden. It will be safe there, away from the scary bulldozers.






















Toad!

"No comment," I said to the reporter when he asked me about the VP candidate's daughter's bun-in-the-oven. I am not one to spread gossip about long-deceased ancestors, but I note that my maternal grandmother's grandparents had her mother exactly eight months into their marriage and my maternal grandfather's grandparents popped a baby out six months and two days after their marriage.

As my mother has stated in the past, the first baby can come at any time.

Of course my father was illegitimate (they used to call those children bastards), his parents didn't get married for a year and a half after he was hatched.

My only comment is that people and their families who push abstinence only, creationism, and a general antipathy towards science are far more likely to have unintended pregnancies than those grown up enough to talk about sex with their kids and have adult conversations that move beyond, "Don't fuck!" to more reasoned things like, "If you become sexually active, promise me you'll use birth control."


























Contemplating my scandal-racked ancestors.