For Frying Out Loud Read online

  Of course, my favorite storm was Hurricane Fay, spelled correctly at that. Bonnie and I had a glorious time listening to all the reports (Fay is intensifying; Fay is boomeranging; Fay is heading for Guantanamo!) but as the saying goes, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. I was gearing up to have great fun at Hurricane Fay’s expense, not to mention columnist Fay’s expense when I heard that the storm had killed a lot of people. Ditto for Gustav, Hannah and Ike. Suddenly it’s not such fun anymore.

  Which is just as well since there are sooo many other things to focus on from the past few weeks.

  Speaking of forces of nature, I have to mention the passing of Del Martin, one of the true pioneers of lesbian rights. She and her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyons, started the very first lesbian rights organization in this country, the Daughters of Bilitis – named for a fictional friend of Sappho. As a couple, Del and Phyllis reminded me so much of my friends Anyda and Muriel, also together over half a century before they both died in 2006. I have to laugh, because Muriel always said that the term Bilitis sounded like a terrible disease and she wanted no part of it.

  Together, Del and Phyllis wrote the book Lesbian/Woman published in 1972. I remember lurking in the dark, outside the Lambda Rising Bookstore in Washington, D.C. in 1978, screwing up my courage to go inside and buy the book. While the picture of 1972 lesbian life wasn’t pretty – women’s softball, seedy bars in bad neighborhoods and butch/femme partnerships, Del and Phyllis were the first to tell me that long-term lesbian relationships did actually exist and that a satisfying life might be possible – even without playing softball, god forbid.

  The sadness of Del’s passing was assuaged a little knowing that she and Phyllis were invited to be the first legal gay union in California. A photo of the 80-somethings cutting their wedding cake looked gorgeous on the front pages of newspapers across the country. In a statement after Del died, Phyllis Lyons said, “I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed.” Amen.

  The political conventions were forces of nature on their own. I almost lost my mind listening to pundits babbling about the speeches, even stooping to babble during the speeches. I was forced to turn to CSPAN just to get some peace and quiet.

  Leaving the subjects of the economy, universal health care, the economy, the Iraq mess and the economy aside, let me just focus on the potential for gay and lesbian equality, relative to the two parties.

  Um, Barack and Joe are our friends. They want to get rid of that stupid “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” favor making it illegal to discriminate against us in housing and jobs, and actually believe we should be treated equally – including making certain we have the same rights as married couples whatever the convoluted language turns out to be.

  With the dismissive back of the hand, McCain and especially Palin are against civil unions and equal rights, and think discrimination against gays in jobs and housing is just fine. Not to wish Cindy or Mr. Hockey Mom any harm, but I wonder if John or Sarah will ever have to sit, crying, in the emergency room and, considered to be scum, kept from visiting their critically ill loved one? Just asking.

  And how about Hillary? What part of the line “Were you voting for me or what I stand for?” don’t the gay women threatening to vote for Sarah Palin understand?

  In the annals of “cutting off your nose to spite your face,” this is a doozy. Let’s elect a woman who doesn’t want women to have a choice regarding reproduction even if it’s rape or incest; a woman who voted to take back partner benefits from Alaskans; a women who wanted to ban books from the library; a women who supports “Don’t Ask”; a woman who wants to teach creationism in public schools and a woman who, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, thinks Abstinence Education works. Good God, it’s Phyllis Schlafly in mukluks.

  One bright spot can now be found weeknights at 9 p.m. on MSNBC. Rachel Maddow, an incredibly bright, insanely clever, terribly attractive young lesbian now has her own left-leaning TV news and commentary show. I know she will be preaching to the choir, but watching her makes me smile, cheer and realize I am not alone in my views. In fact, I finally understand why a brigade of dittoheads loves to listen to Limbaugh. Well, at least this is one for my side.

  Meanwhile, do you want the person who is a heartbeat from the presidency to be someone whose top credential is field dressing a moose? Did I say that with my outside voice???

  I’m done now. Maybe the meteorologists were right when they described Hurricane Fay as a wide swath of gusting wind. Sorry if I’ve offended. But this election, not only is it the economy, stupid, it’s all the rest of the issues. And I hope people vote based on them, whatever their choice.

  My name is Fay Jacobs and I approved this column.

  October 2008

  ONLY AS OLD AS YOU FEEL???

  I’m going to get the senior ticket price at the film festival this year and I have decidedly mixed emotions about it. Sure, saving a buck sounds good, but the implications of accepting the discount are horrifying.

  Turning 60 hit me like a ton of Metamucil.

  So I decided to monitor my behavior to determine if I was merely mathematically challenged or if I was actually a bonafide old fart.

  You be the judge.

  At a recent 20th anniversary party, revelers of a certain age crammed the dance floor for the disco tunes, hands waving over our heads for “Gloria,” while the stomping and clapping for “We Are Fam-i-ly” shook the party tent. Nice and spry.

  Later, as dozens of women headed to their cars, I heard somebody whisper “sciatica,” and another cop to a frozen shoulder. Feeling youngish, Bonnie and I only let out a few small wheezes.

  The next day at a golf league party, about a hundred women rocked to the music and sang along with ABBA. I have to admit to drinking straight champagne instead of Mimosas because these days it’s not the bubbly that causes Acid Reflux, it’s the orange juice. But I danced like a fool, so I’d call it a draw on the Old Fartometer.

  Then came the golf tournament. I know, you’re wondering who would be dumb enough to ask me to join a team that hoped to win a golf tournament. Well it turns out that this was the Comcast Client Appreciation Golf Tournament and I was the client to be appreciated. I was paired with my equally non-athletic account rep but brought two ringers with me for the foursome. In fact, they were so good that a rumor whipped through the player roster that the only all-women foursome included two semi-pros. That was a good thing because the other two of us were semi-conscious.

  Since we played “best ball,” my Comcast buddy and I mostly teed off for laughs and retreated to our cart to await the frequent arrival of the adult beverage truck. While our shills made one par or birdie after another, we just enjoyed our cocktails and the bayside scenery.

  Frankly, the more Yuengling I consumed, the better golfer (in relative terms) I became. By the 17th hole I whacked the ball like an Amazon, sending it farther than I had ever launched one before. It wasn’t until I turned to walk back to the golf cart that I discovered I’d also attempted to remove my hip from its socket. Good lord, where is that beverage cart when you need it. My post game wrap up was an ice bag.

  This discomforting reality show was followed two days later by my spouse’s birthday celebration. She’d kill me if I failed to note here that as of this birthday she is not, repeat, not, yet a Film Society Senior. This birthday.

  Anyway, at dinner, six women and two men consumed enough Chinese food and Saki to feed half of Beijing, then waddled out of the restaurant at 9:45 – and decided to pass up dancing and a night cap. 9:45 on a Saturday night for pity’s sake and we all retreated to our respective pre-assisted living residences. Confucius say these people really old.

  To be fair though, I felt a little less decrepit the next morning when one of our young boyfriends, sporting a dandy hangover, called to say “I should have gone home when the lesbians did.” At least he didn’t say old lesbians.
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br />   But the final test of my senior citizenhood came yesterday on a bright fall afternoon. The Delaware AIDS walk took place in Rehoboth Beach for the first time and I participated. I suspect, in addition to wanting to raise money for the cause, I was trying desperately to hold back the hands of father time and refute my claim to a $1 break on a movie ticket.

  No, I thought, there’s still hope. I shall defy the clock.

  I raised a lot of money. Let’s face it, people donated partly out of sincerity for the cause and partly because the very idea of me voluntarily walking 3.5 miles outside of a shopping mall made them giddy.

  Ya know, 3.5 miles is longer than it was in the Mesozoic era. By the time we got half way through, I was panting only slightly less than the Rottweiler behind me. Although my tongue may have been hanging out as far.

  On the plus side, I am pleased to note I didn’t have to utter the old fart classic “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

  And the fact that I could get out of bed unaided this morning gave me hope.

  I proclaim that I am not yet a total old fart. But as far as the Film Society is concerned let’s not let on.

  See you at the movies.

  November 2008

  THE BITCH ON THE DASHBOARD

  We got a navigation system for my car. I was determined to holdout, as I didn’t get my orienteering badge in Girl Scouts for nothing, but several recent episodes changed my mind.

  Two weeks ago we tried to get into Manhattan from upstate, missed a turn and traveled all five boroughs before finding the 59th Street Bridge. We were not Feelin’ Groovy. (Gen X-ers, tell me you get that reference, please…).

  Then I got confused returning from western Delaware and wound up driving through Gumboro, twice. Once is too much.

  So going to New York City two weeks ago, we stopped at Best Buy, bought a GPS Navigation System, plugged it in, stuck the screen up on the dashboard and headed north.

  I was a little surprised when the device addressed me with a British accent. Cheerio. The voice was pleasant enough, but told us to exit the parking lot in 3 kilometers. As metric morons, we missed the turn, and Mary Poppins said “recalculating” and gave us more directions we couldn’t follow. At this rate we’d be circling Piccadilly Circus until Thursday.

  Right then and there I should have looked in the book to find out how to emigrate Sarah Ferguson over the pond but I get carsick if I read when we’re moving, and Bonnie was busy missing the I-95 ramp three consecutive times.

  “Ignore her,” I said to Bonnie, “here’s the exit.” The voice corrected me, saying “re-cal-cu-la-ting. Turn in four kilometers.” Jane Austen was a more irritating back seat driver than I was.

  When we pulled off for lunch, she seemed a tad annoyed. I tried to make amends by telling her we were stopping for a spot of tea and sticky pudding.

  It was getting back on the turnpike that was sticky. Emma Thompson sent us around our elbows to get to our thumbs, in between the diesel pumps and exhaust spewing 18-wheelers. When we followed our instincts instead of her directions I swear it was a testy Margaret Thatcher denouncing us. “Re-cal-cu-la-ting you dumb Yankees….”

  Finally, I pushed “menu” and hired an American navigator. Her voice was more casual, but no less irritated when we ignored her. At least we knew how many tenths of a mile we’d gone before missing a turn.

  By the Newark New Jersey airport we looked for the Holiday Inn. Although our date was in Manhattan, this was the closest room we could get because of the NY Marathon.

  “Turn right at ramp in three quarters of a mile,” said Miss America. I clearly saw the hotel off to the left. We exited, and GPS lady told us to turn right. “But it’s off to the left,” I told Bonnie. “Turn right in two tenths of a mile,” said Amelia Earhart, the dashboard bully. “No! Turn left!” I said.

  “I can’t argue with both of you at once,” yelled Bonnie, who then went the wrong way on a one way street in what looked to be gang turf. “Recalculating, Recalculating, Recalculating.” By this time the arrow on the navigational device screen channeled a Miró painting.

  By the time we found the Holiday Inn again we’d gone round Robin Hood’s barn, back an exit on the turnpike and slightly insane. Are we in Wasilla, Alaska yet??? (God, forbid.)

  As we parked and got out, Bonnie reminded me to put the GPS in the glove box like the salesman suggested. I considered leaving her in plain view for the opportunity to drive a criminal crazy.

  Later, on the way into the City, my city, mind you, where I grew up and knew pretty much every route to everywhere on its easily numbered streets, we obeyed Dora the Explorer again and missed the Holland Tunnel entirely. Not, by the way, easy to do.

  Dashboard girl recalculated, taking us through lovely Jersey City, past the rear end of the Statue of Liberty and, after a few weird turns, to our destination – the annual Women’s Gala for the New York Gay & Lesbian Community Center. Though the party was at the Chelsea Piers along the Hudson River, the navigation screen showed the car on 11th Avenue at a falafel stand.

  But we got to the gala, where the guests of honor were Lisa Sherman (head of LOGO network, and the spectacular speaker at last year’s Rehoboth Beach Women’s Conference) and Ilene Chaiken, creator of The L Word TV series, and several of its cast members.

  Amid flowing cosmos and a dazzling dinner, several speeches touched me, but it was a breathtakingly moving speech by L Word’s breathtakingly beautiful Jennifer Beall that made me cry. Here was a straight woman, who played gay for Hollywood, choked up about having a chance to help educate America about equality for her gay friends. And with the series ending this Spring, she’s saddened that her on-screen opportunity to do so is ending. But off-screen we’ve got a friend for life. Bonnie got to shake Jennifer Beall’s hand, and hated to wash her hands after that.

  I wanted to wash my hands of the GPS device, but Bonnie lobbied to give her another chance. Aiming for the airport Holiday Inn again, our directionally challenged electronic gadget sent us to arrivals, departures, air freight and a single toll booth twice, once in each direction, before honing in on the motel.

  The next morning, on the return trip, we kept one eye on the road and one ear on the bitch on the dashboard. She did pretty well on the major roads, but much of Delaware baffled her completely (and I have to admit, I get that way sometimes myself). Naturally, she’d never even heard of our street. Approaching home we heard her say “satellite reception lost. Satellite reception lost.” And the screen showed us driving off the Nassau Bridge. It was all I could do to keep from tossing the electronic device off the bridge with us.

  I’m not saying I’m giving up. It’s worth persevering to avoid being an episode of Lost through Gumboro and hearing banjo music. But just in case, I’m buying a new atlas. You can never be too rich, too thin or too low-tech.

  January 2009

  I (SORT OF) WITNESSED HISTORY

  Everybody I know told me I was nuts, but I went to the inaugural. I simply had to be there. And it was 39 hours of chaos you can believe in.

  My friend Ronni (who had flown in from Ft. Lauderdale) and I started out at 7:30 a.m. the day before the inaugural, driving to my son Eric’s house on the fringe of Capitol Hill in D.C.

  He’d scared us with worries they’d close bridges and highways at a certain point and we’d be shut out–hence the 0-dark-30 departure, stoked with coffee, prepared for traffic.

  Hardly. Although we did see numerous khaki-dressed men stopping all trucks, searching for terrorists in truck bombs. But we arrived safely, without incident.

  “Let’s buy our souvenirs today,” I said, not wanting to carry crap in the Tuesday throng. The whole world had the same idea. At Union Station all the shops, no matter their regular stock, sold souvenirs and it was only marginally less lethal than Walmart on Black Friday. People, myself included, grabbed inaugural branded pins, buttons, hats, shirts, mugs, and golf balls (really) and stood in long cashier lines stretching into the massively crowded station mall
. It would have looked like the bloody railroad station scene in Gone with the Wind but none of us had room to be laid out.

  Schlepping our goodies, we endured the crammed Metro train and headed for Safeway to buy Depends diapers. You heard me.

  Eric and I, contemplating the equation of people divided by porta-potties, panicked. More on this later, like that’s any reason to keep reading.

  At 5 p.m., we headed for Dupont Circle, because Kate Clinton had announced she’d be at gay ground zero Monday evening saging (sage-ing?) the evil spirits out of Washington with this shaman endorsed herb. There she was, waving a burning torch of sage, with a thousand people cheering. As far as I’m concerned there’s not enough Lysol, never mind sage, to clean up the stench from the last eight years, but they tried. There was also a 30 ft. high inflatable George Bush at this street party and we were urged to throw shoes at it. People lined up.

  From Dupont we headed for dinner in Chinatown, dodging the flood of happy hometown entrepreneurs selling buttons, hats and shirts. At the Metro I had a goosebump moment, as a lone saxophone player stood by the exit, slowly wailing “America the Beautiful.” The swarms applauded, smiled, tossed money. After the inaugural, that horn player probably had enough dough for a Ferrari.

  Later, friends took us to a gay bar featuring a Fabulous First Ladies Drag Show. The club’s music throbbed while a huge video wall showed George Bush making unflattering faces, with superimposed words flashing “Bush’s Last Day!!!!”

  The first ladies excelled, getting the costuming and lip sync right, if not the gender or often the ethnicity. We drank Bye-Bye-Cheney shooters, so I can’t tell you much about the rest of the night. I do know that Ronni and I were probably the oldest people in the room, but we didn’t care.

  6 a.m. came up pretty fast. Depends time. Eric and I opened the package and looked at the elastic waisted paper garments. Whoa. We discussed whether, if the need desperately arose, we would actually be able to just, um…let go along Pennsylvania Avenue. Didn’t think so and relegated the Depends to “a good idea in theory.” We’d take our chances.