January 05, 2009
So what has Harper Lee been doing for the last 49 years?
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)
December 30, 2008
During this difficult time I am of course finding solace in knitting. Behold my first attempt at entrelac.
It's a belated Christmas present for [Very, Very Famous Person]'s personal hairdresser.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:52 PM | Comments (7)
December 28, 2008
This is the problem when one tries to be a caretaker to a dying family member: it's not possible.
A caretaker's job is to make the dying person as comfortable as possible while he fades. A family member's job is to try to accept that death is on its way and prepare to welcome it as much as possible. As a caretaker you are charged with his body; as a family member you are charged with his soul.
When you try to do both, then the idea of comfort is replaced perforce by the idea of survival. When your father is dying, as E.S.'s is downstairs, it is out of human ken to remember, as you hold the bucket when he starts vomiting bile, that you're not trying to keep him alive. Every act, every moment becomes therefore about wringing one more second of life out of the disaster in front of you. And if that's what you're doing then it's categorically impossible to prepare for death. You can either fight it or accept it. You can't do both. This is one reason people put terminally ill family members in hospice.
Adding to the impossibility of playing both roles to somebody is the fact that it becomes ever more difficult to try to compass the life fading in front of you, because when he loses control of his bladder or his bowels and you have to clean up the mess you are filled with hot, savage resentment.
Also, you suck at being a caretaker. You weren't trained for this; you've never done it before. Half the time all you succeed in doing is putting him in more pain than he already was.
And having a health-care worker stop by once a day doesn't count as hospice.
I have known these things for a long, long time, having grown up with a mother who was dying of juvenile diabetes before she even bore me. E.S. realized these things. I think, fairly soon after his parents moved in with us..
But his mother has not. I have brought to bear every blandishment of which I can conceive, but to no avail.
I understand the impulse; really, I do. I'm just worried that Mrs. S. is robbing herself of something that would otherwise be a great comfort to her, now and hereafter.
She's going to need all the comfort she can get.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:08 PM | Comments (13)
December 27, 2008
Of course, it could also be that I'm so desperate to feel hope about our country's future that I'm looking at the present with blinders on.
We'll find out soon enough which one it is.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:08 AM | Comments (3)
December 23, 2008
Okay, can everybody just shut the fuck up about Rick Warren?
The fact that the anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-Proposition 8 pastor is speaking at Obama's inauguration is not a sign that Obama is willing to throw the gay community to the lions. It is not a flip-flop. It is not a promise broken before Obama even takes office.
It is further evidence that our president-elect is a brilliant tactician.
Take a look at Obama's policy proposals. While he's fairly centrist on foreign policy, on domestic and economic issues he is almost brazenly liberal.
Obama is a progressive in moderate's clothing.
He has learned--or he knows by instinct--the apparently unbeatable tactic of the Usurper-in-Chief: say you're doing something your opponents find palatable, and then ignore them and do whatever you want to do.
Is there anything--anything at all--that Obama could do between now and his inauguration that would both make the Christian right happier and be more meaningless in practical terms? Because if there is I can't think of it.
Of course I could be wrong, and we could all be headed for the boxcars. But Obama's record is too consistently liberal and his political machinations too sophisticated for me to believe that.
I think we're headed for a very, very good eight years.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 04:24 PM | Comments (11)
December 22, 2008
So the reason that E.S.'s parents moved in with us is that his father is dying of esophageal cancer and this way the family can be together during his last days.
There is much to say about this, obviously, but for the moment I'll confine myself to remarking that I'm happy to be able to have him here.
And that the house now smells like sick person.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:56 AM | Comments (12)
December 03, 2008
I just got this message from a friend on my answering machine:
"Hi, Faustus, it's C. Can you tell me, is it a bad thing when you want to carve the Serenity Prayer on your arm with a pocket knife? Please give me a call. Please."
Also, E.S.'s parents are moving into our house on Friday.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:24 PM | Comments (13)
November 17, 2008
While attempting to clean my office today, I came across the first gift I ever received from somebody who was not a blood relative. It was given to me when I was five by my across-the-street neighbor Meb.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 07:49 PM | Comments (8)
November 16, 2008
I understand that, for the young, Facebook has virtually innumerable appealing qualities.
However, for people of a certain age, the best things about Facebook, as far as I can tell, are that you find out
1) all the people you wanted to sleep with in high school but couldn't dream of doing so because they were straight are now gay; and
2) All the people you were jealous of and wanted so badly to be that it made you bleed are now fat and real estate agents.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 02:56 AM | Comments (13)
November 12, 2008
From a conversation E.S. and I had tonight:
E.S.: Honey, let's move to Bali!
FAUSTUS: No.
E.S.: We could have a house on stilts!
FAUSTUS: No.
E.S.: Why are you such a party pooper?
FAUSTUS: It's my job as your lover.
E.S.: To destroy all my joy?
FAUSTUS: Yep.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:11 PM | Comments (8)
November 10, 2008
I cannot fucking wait till it rains:
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:21 PM | Comments (7)
November 09, 2008
One day, at the age of twelve or thirteen, as I was coming down the stairs into the kitchen I noticed the Hershey bar on top of the refrigerator and, being particularly desirous of something sweet at the time, decided to eat it, and did so. Technically there was a Hershey bar on top of the refrigerator so that if my diabetic mother's blood sugar should ever fall precipitously low my father would have something with which to prevent her falling into a diabetic coma before she could be gotten to the hospital. I knew, however, that this was only a formality, since such a thing had never happened in my memory and my mother's diabetes was well under control. The Hershey bar was delicious.
Then, about a month and a half later, my diabetic mother's blood sugar fell precipitously low. I remember the ensuing scene only very, very vaguely; I know it involved my father's roaring at me, my dissolving into wailing, tearful sobs, and the emergency delivery by some means or other of a Hershey bar to the house. My mother did not fall into a diabetic coma before she could be gotten to the hospital. She did end up having to stay there for a week or two, but when she came back she seemed more or less fine.
I grew up in a house where if you ate a candy bar somebody might die. Is it any wonder I'm fucked up?
Posted by Faustus, MD at 06:38 PM | Comments (12)
November 08, 2008
Between the ages of eight and twelve the person who has never been seen in the same room as me lived in Washington, D.C. His family moved back to Charleston, South Carolina at that point, so he had to start seventh grade in a new school with people he didn't know. Apparently he did in fact know a few of them, from when he'd lived there before, but he'd been seven, and he didn't remember any of them by now. So it was with great apprehension that he sat down for homeroom in the fourth desk from the back in the far right row. He knew that his comportment over the next few weeks would determine his classmates' opinion of him and that this opinion would be immutable for all time.
A girl leaned back from the row on his left, two seats from the front, and said, "What's your name?"
"Joel," he said.
"Oh, like Billy Joe?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, "but with an L."
Whereupon he realized instantly that what she had actually said was "Oh, like Billy Joel?" and that he had effectively ruined any chance he might have had at a social life for the next six years.
He still wonders, I'm told, what his life would be like now if he'd just been listening a little more carefully.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:18 PM | Comments (2)
November 07, 2008
I've written a number of times on this blog about the musical drama I'm writing about Terezín, the Czech ghetto the Nazis used as a propaganda tool during the Second World War.
Well, we have an actual off-Broadway production planned, opening in May. Like, an actual New York production, with actual actors and an actual set and, one hopes, an actual audience.
The problem is, of course, that it's going to require actual money. Like, somewhere between $500,000 and $700,000. The theater we're working with is going to put up as much of that money as it can, but given the Late Unpleasantness I figured they can use all the help they can get.
So with the help of this lovely goddess I've set up a website at terezinsings.org. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you to stop by and consider 1) making a small donation and 2) using the "tell your friends" option to forward the URL to friends and family you think might also be interested in making donations. The more help we can get, the better our chances of making this actually happen.
Thank you. And wish me luck.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:20 AM | Comments (4)
November 06, 2008
So Proposition 8 has 400,000 more yes votes than no votes--and there are still three to four million votes left to count.
And even if it ends up winning a majority of the votes, it will be invalid anyway, since the proposers didn't follow the procedure required in cases like this by the California constitution.
All is not lost.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:04 AM | Comments (9)
November 05, 2008
Shortly after Senator McCain's concession speech last night, I called my father, whom I've discussed before in the pages of this blog. He fought on the front lines of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the 1960s and along with my mother was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He recently turned 70 years old, and though he hasn't stopped fighting for justice--mostly in the field of labor law these days--the predations that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 have taken their toll.
So rather than share my thoughts on last night's events, I'll share his:
"You know how people say, 'I never dreamed I would see something like this in my lifetime'?
"Well, I did.
"And then there came a time when I stopped dreaming, because things changed.
"And tonight I'm dreaming again. I'm so excited about the future, and so full of hope.
"And Faustus, you've got a great country ahead of you."
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:43 AM | Comments (11)
November 04, 2008
When E.S. and I went to vote this morning, there was a guy with a handheld video camera making, one presumed, some sort of documentary. As E.S. conferred with the poll volunteer about which election district we were in, the guy pointed his camera toward me and said, "What does today mean to you?
And I thought for a moment, and I said, "It means I'm an American."
The thought that that might soon start to mean something again makes me very, very happy.
However, the polling place, though a public school, made the regrettable mistake of not having a bake sale, which I really thought was mandatory during elections.
I hope this doesn't mean my vote will be suppressed.
It's okay, though, since at lunch I had red velvet cake, which was delicious and had the added advantage of not having been touched by a grade-schooler.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:14 PM | Comments (6)
October 24, 2008
Oh, Jay, Jay, not you, too!
What is this world coming to?
Just you wait. Next it'll be Tim Gunn who's putting apostrophes where they don't belong, and I will have to blow my brains out.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:06 PM | Comments (4)
October 23, 2008
I was on the phone with my father the other day talking about the upcoming election and he said, "Faustus, you've never been this fired up about politics before."
I said, "That's because I've never had hope about politics before."
Ronald Reagan became the president of the United States when I was seven two; my entire adolescent and adult life has been spent watching my country sink lower and lower (with a plateau during the Clinton years). But now I'm excited.
Please, please, please, God. Please.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:00 PM | Comments (10)
October 22, 2008
Last night I dreamed that, after she and I sank on the Titanic, my dog established a colony on the ocean floor and that she ruled over it peacefully for decades. After a long and satisfying period of peace and prosperity, she stepped down and passed the crown to her daughter but remained in the colony in an advisory capacity. My dog's daughter did the same when her time to step down came. The colony was populated mostly by bugs, but they were cute bugs, not icky bugs. Many times hordes of icky enemy bugs attacked the colony, but my dog and her descendants made consistently good decisions and always ended up absorbing the icky enemy bugs into the colony and making them into cute bugs. I was there the whole time but obviously I recognized that it would be folly to interfere with my dog's wise governmental choices. When our friend Y. showed up, we realized that it was time to go, and my dog's last words to the colony were that its members should support all things in their natural course and particularly that the plastic forks should be allowed to mate with the plastic spoons and that in fact all the plastic flatware should be allowed to mate with anybody else, because it would only strengthen the colony in the end.
Then we set off with our friend Y. on the path to our next adventure.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 06:06 AM | Comments (15)
October 07, 2008
We have now broken the national debt clock (thanks to Joemygod for the link.)
Posted by Faustus, MD at 06:03 PM | Comments (5)
October 05, 2008
Okay, this is ridiculous.
I've been all over the web for hours and I can't find it.
Where is the Obama/McCain slash fic?
Posted by Faustus, MD at 04:22 AM | Comments (12)
October 01, 2008
A generous soul shared this in the comments on yesterday's post, and it's simply too delicious not to publicize. I sense an M. Night Shyamalan sequel in the offing, but actually scary this time.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:01 AM | Comments (3)
September 30, 2008
For the artisans among us, here is a Sarah Palin stained glass window.
You can find the pattern here.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:20 AM | Comments (11)
September 28, 2008
We here at Look at These Folks Who've Made Yet Another Shriekingly Funny Clip Mocking Sarah Palin are taking a short break to commend to you Franklin Habit's Guys With Yarn: The 2009 Calendar.
I've already got Franklin's word that I can be Mr. February in 2010.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:23 PM | Comments (8)
September 26, 2008
I feel that I ought to apologize for the fact that The Search for Love in Manhattan is apparently morphing into Look at These Folks Who've Made Yet Another Shriekingly Funny Clip Mocking Sarah Palin, but I can't help myself. (Thanks to College Humor for the clip.)
Posted by Faustus, MD at 03:32 PM | Comments (5)
September 24, 2008
The other night, as I was knitting a pair of socks, E.S. was dancing around to some music he'd just downloaded. He tried to get me to dance with him but I demurred. Later in the evening he had obviously gotten into a very grumpy mood; I could tell because I would ask him questions and he wouldn't answer them. Then we had the following brief conversation.
FAUSTUS: Why aren't you talking to me?
E.S.: Because you wouldn't dance with me earlier.
FAUSTUS: I was in the middle of a round of knitting.
E.S.: Life happens in the middle of rounds of knitting.
FAUSTUS: Not if I can help it.
Then we had sex.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:04 PM | Comments (13)
September 23, 2008
I always thought, whenever people talked about Middlesex, that they actually meant Middlemarch. This led me to believe that a lot of people had some very, very strange interpretations of great literature.
It wasn't until a few months ago that I realized I just hadn't been listening carefully.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 07:39 AM | Comments (8)
September 18, 2008
I feel this is kind of brilliant.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 05:47 AM | Comments (6)
September 12, 2008
I am now in love with Sara Benincasa.
Go here for more. I'm on #5 and so far they've just kept getting funnier and funnier.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:15 PM | Comments (6)
September 11, 2008
There's a very interesting piece about the future of gay cultural icons in the new issue of The Advocate.
I mean, it's conceivable that I'm letting the fact that I wrote it influence my judgment unfairly, but still.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 04:16 PM | Comments (9)
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