Daily Diary - 10/23/2004

6:17am - Wake up early, even though this is sleeping in for me. Max (American short hair cat) needs huge amounts of attention.

6:30am - I quietly get up and put on a robe (you got it, I sleep naked!), and try not to wake Kent. But he awakens and heads off for the shower. I go downstairs to make us some coffee.

7:30am - We head off to Vernon Diner for breakfast. We usually go to Monet’s Table every Saturday morning, but Kent has a departmental “retreat” all day today starting at 9:00, so that won’t work because Monet’s Table doesn’t open until 9:00.

We talked about the war in Iraq, U.S. policies, our allies, or current lack there of. We also talked about possibly moving to Canada once again. There’s a lot involved with that of course. We would leave our home behind, our jobs, and start a new life in a country that valued us as citizens, where we could be free and be married. Real freedom. But I don’t want to give up on my country yet. I still hope that people will want to be fair minded to gay couples and to let us be equal. We’ll see. I hate talking about this because I don't think we should have to talk about this. It shouldn't be an issue.

8:55am - We are home. Kent is getting ready to leave. I am a bit board and thinking about how nice a hot shower sounds.

2:30pm - Knock on the door. I open the door. Two women are standing there. One hands me a pamphlet entitled, “Would you Like to Know More About the Bible?”, as she says to me, “Would you like to hear what the Bible has to say about you?” I replied, “No, that’s ok. I’ve heard for many years from people just like yourselves what the Bible has to say about people like me.”

With that, I closed the door.

4:00pm - Kent comes home from his meeting. He dresses in work clothes to go out to mow the lawn for the last time this year. A lot of leaves have fallen and litter our yard and driveway. While mowing the lawn, the same two ladies return and give him the “we’re here to save you speech”. He declines. They walk away, hopefully for the last time. Maybe I should just put a big rainbow flag out on my porch, or would that just invite the neighborhood kids to spray paint the word, “F A G” across our garage doors?

5:30pm - Lawn done. Ready to go out to dinner. We head for the mall and end up and Red Robin where I eat a cholesterol-laced “Blue Burger” (greasy hamburger with blue cheese). Yeah, I know, it probably sounds gross to you, but at the time, it sounded good.

7:00pm - My body is saying, “What the hell did you do to me?!” Note to Bill: chill on the red meat.

9:00pm - Watching some dumb movie that I tuned into but didn’t watch from the beginning. Three college-age guys are traveling down the road. One has blue hair, the other is bald from shaving his head, and one has a Mohawk. They look as if they are from another planet. They are crossing the border into Wyoming to buy beer.

The conversation starts off from the bald guy, “Most people think I’m gay, even the chicks, but I’m not gay. But gay guys are totally cool to hang with. I don’t care if others call me a fag.”

The Mohawk guy says, “I don’t know man. I would care if someone called me a fag.”

The bald guy responds, “Dude, they aren’t calling you a ‘fag’, they are calling you a name to make themselves look better. I’m calling you a ‘fag’!” [much laughter]

They arrive at the store and the store owner sees them and thinks that they’ve escaped from the local mental institution. He picks up the phone and offers to call the institution to come and put them back in. The blue-haired guy says, “No, we aren’t from the institution, we are just from England.” The store owner says, “Oh, that explains it.”

Owner’s wife comes out and looks at them in horror. Owner tells his wife, “Don’t worry, they are from England!” She say, “Oh!”, with great relief. She then looks at the blue haired guy and says very slowly as though she is talking to a foreigner, “H e l l o. I t ’ s v e r y n i c e t o m e e t y o u.”

After that they go to the back of the store where the beer is. There are two people talking about the end of the world that is at hand. The three start talking to them about it. “How will you know when it happens?”, the blue-haired guy asks. She said, “There will be devil creatures who will come into this world to take it over.” He asks her, “How will we recognize them?”. She answers, “They will have the sign on them. The ‘666’.”

With that, he starts acting very strangely. He starts dancing around, pulls down his pants, turns around, and displays the tattoo on his butt cheek that says “666”. She screams and runs out of the store. The manager gets his shot gun out from behind the counter, and everyone leaves the store.

I turn off the TV, and say quietly to myself, “What the hell did I just watch?”

I go to bed.