copyright May 23, 2001 Beren deMotier

Maggots Before Breakfast

In summertime, anything can happen.

At least, that’s what it feels like. When we’re ready to embark on another summer, I know it’s likely to be nothing that I expect, and lots more than I was hoping for. We don’t, like some, plan glamorous vacations. We don’t “cruise”, or even, as mommies, take the kids on down to Florida to Disney World. Our vacation budget (the amount we agree to increase our debt), usually gets spent on travel to family weddings, or alternately, funerals.

Summer is more a time of everyday epiphanies. Even gross ones. Late last summer we had a Sunday morning we will never forget.

It was early but already the sun streamed into our room, promising to be a hot one. In a rare fit of gardening enthusiasm, we decided to weed the vegetable patch, right then and there. I disentangled myself from our sleeping and sweaty five-year old and sat on the edge of the bed to unwrap the ace bandage from my lower calf. My wife was appalled to see that beneath the ace bandage there was a panti-liner affixed to my leg. It was the only thing I could think of that was big enough to cover the fresh tailpipe burn that marked the one and only time I have thrown caution to the wind and ridden on the back of my wife’s bike. Wouldn’t you know I’d step out on the wrong side. Our neighbors had been over for dinner the night before and one of them, who happens to be a professor of nursing, suggested I keep it covered. For all our sakes. It’s ugly, and distinctive. In fact, just the day before (when the burn was uncovered) a fetching brunette in a big truck slowed down behind my car as I unloaded the back end and said, with upturned brow, “motorcycle burn”. Clearly she knew from experience.

To read the entire article, click on Maggots Before Breakfast

copyright June 1999 Beren deMotier

A Heartfelt Thanks To All the Pioneers

I almost missed it. As I do many things. When newspapers enter our house, they sit, get older, are scanned hurriedly and then recycled. We’re out of touch, sure, but that’s life right now, a marathon race of picking up and dropping off and deadlines and homework and the usual. And so it was an exception that I actually gave our local gay paper Just Out a more thorough read and discovered to my delight that one of my favorite authors is coming to town next week, Lillian Faderman.

I always make the assumption that every lesbian in America knows Lillian Faderman’s work, and pays similar homage. I figure any woman who writes “a history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America” (Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers) deserves the occasional genuflection by the grateful masses. But maybe it’s just me.

Needless to say I poured over the short article about her latest book, To Believe In Women, and her gratitude for all the women who paved the way for her acceptance and happiness as a lesbian.

And I thought, way to go Lillian. I’ll second that motion.

To read the entire article, click on Thanks Lillian

And The Issue Burning Issue Is, Can Boys Marry Boys

It has been an interesting spring around our house. We spent February sick as dogs and the wife and I nearly divorced over “gardening issues.” We spent March nursing the kids through more sickness and had a larger than usual dose of family-of-origin interaction. April has already had me running all over town looking for a stove to replace our former faithful companion and now deathtrap extraordinaire. This has taken longer than expected. Mention the word “stove” to our five year old and his face screws up into an ugly grimace and he’ll reply “I hate stoves!” with the venom of a pit viper.

Nothing like appliance shopping with two kids, yessirree.

So now, out of the blue, I have to look into.... Kindergartens.

OK, OK, sounds pretty mundane I’m sure. What’s the big deal after all, one Kindergarten has got to be pretty much the same as another, right?

Not if the Kindergartner’s parents are a couple of homos.

To read the entire article, click on Can Boys Marry Boys?

To Grandmother’s House We Go

Over a river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go…

Next week in fact. Though our voyage will take us straight up the I-5 corridor through rain, holiday weekend traffic and past wet fields dotted with sodden steer.

And when we get there Friday night, we will be engulfed in a cocoon of grandparently enthusiasm. Our kids, waking from their driving-induced slumber will come alive at the idea of Grandma! Grandpa! And all those excellent toys and videos they stock in grandchild heaven. Grandma will pick them up, shake them about, get down on the floor with them, and ask them (with all the attention of a well-paid therapist) about everything going on in their lives. Grandpa, after the initial greetings, will ask about our drive, how our new car is working out, are we hungry? Then he’ll tell us about all the meals he’s got planned for the weekend, when Grandma is working, and ask whether my wife would like to go to the store with him because he forgot to get the rocky road ice cream. Somewhere in there Grandma will have gone off to her bedroom and come back with a plastic bag filled with either junior-sized sweatpants, or a dress for our daughter, maybe a gross of socks or even a Lego building set. Just something she picked up she’ll say with a good-natured grin, her eyes twinkling, knowing we think our children are spoiled enough as it is.

And that’s just the first twenty minutes.

How things have changed.

To read entire article, click on To Grandmother's House

My Own Thong Song

Today was perhaps my nadir of embarrassment to date. A day so embarrassing it brought back my high school years in all their agonizing glory, a time replete with mortifying sanitary pad incidents, and social missteps that make Bridget Jones seem like Poise Itself.

I am a blushing mess of a mom. Because of my thong underwear.

Nowadays, thong underwear is ubiquitous. But I have been a devotee long before there were panty shields specifically designed for thong users, before there was a “Thong Song”, and before one could routinely see the waist-band of a thong rising above a woman’s low slung pants as she walked along the street.

Yes, it was an innocent time.

To read entire article, click on THONG