So . . .

Girls  "Lust For Life"  Album

  A long while ago, maybe 20 years, my old man (father, not male partner) was faced with one of many challenges to his early boomer worldview (class of '60).  As a member of a Unitarian Universalist church in the suburbs of Cleveland, he was faced with a number of his peers, now in their forties, suddenly divorcing their wives and taking up with new partners who just happened to be men.  My dad, being still a bit awesome . . .

  It has been a steady decline in awesomeness for my old man From teenage early-adopter of Chess and Checker Blues and Rock, to mid-life embracer of the white-liberal faith of Unitarian-Universalism to second-divorce visitor of "singles camps" to septuagenarian global-warming denier, he has been on a strangely wrong trajectory . . .

  As I was saying, while still awesome, my old man reflected upon this seemingly more than occasional occurrence of his baby-boomer friends leaving their long-term relationships for a mid-life, same-sex partnership, and he told me, "I guess I get it.  Frankly, at this point, I don't really care who is lying in the bed next to me as long as they leave me the fuck alone."

  Also, on November 6, for the first-through-fourth time ever, same-sex marriage was upheld at the ballot box in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington.  And the supreme court justice in Iowa that conservatives were trying to oust because he had upheld marriage equality through the state constitution won reelection.

  And there is this video for this song, which I like not because it is porn (which I guess it is if singing into a penis like it is a microphone is porn), but because everyone in it is young and dumb and full and it doesn't much matter who it is they are rolling around with.  "Maybe if I really tried with all of my heart, then I could make a brand new start in love with you . . ."

  That is the bottom line and why I have never (and really never) given a shit about a person's sexual identity.  It is really hard to find someone you want to be with for more than even a drink, let alone an evening or god forbid a lifetime.  To have someone else telling you that the person you choose is somehow wrong . . . who needs to deal with that.  If there has ever been an even quasi-legitimate reason for nosing into someone else's bedroom beyond a parent's selfish fear they may not get grandkids, I don't see it. Even that is based solely in vengeance, and therefore pretty base.

  It doesn't matter your damage, which comes in all shapes and sizes.  And it doesn't matter your cure, which are equally as varied.  Everyone is looking for the person(s) that make(s) them complete and helps them get through the next few hours, next days, next months, years, decades.  As my old man slides into an ultra-conservative convalescence, I guess we can take heart that the nation as a whole is moving more toward awesome and no one much cares who is lying in bed next to you, even if they don't just leave you the fuck alone.