Take a Penny Leave a Penny.

So I keep a decorative basket of condoms and lube in my office. Sometimes it holds candy or treats. But usually condoms.

I'm not positive what that says about me as a student affairs professional, but I think it really sets the tone in the room. Its pretty automatic street cred for the students that come in to talk to me. Because if I have condoms that must mean I want them to get laid, and I cant possibly be all bad. It's very similar to when I let the occasional obscenity slip in a meeting. Holy shit she swears. She is like us but with better shoes.

Added bonus? The basket is really fucking cute. ( See how I slipped that one in? Im just begging you to validate my cool.)

Anyway, I like to keep well stocked because A) nothing is more depressing than a lone condom or pillow of lube laying in a decorative basket, and B) no one ever has the huevos to take the last one. ever. Seriously. It will lay there for weeks untouched by man.

And I know dont if there is an influx of sexual activity (could be the season?) or if all of a sudden my stash has been discovered by the campus at large and the grapevine is humming with "Dude, there is an office here encouraging us to be sexually responsible!", but man! There aren't enough condoms in the world to keep that thing full. I have tried.

It was brimming on Monday morning. Tuesday morning? One left! One! And I thought hey, maybe there was an orgy I didn't know about. Or someone has finally learned to make balloon animals!

So I restocked. And today? Three left! If the trend continues I might contact Trojan directly and tell them Hey! The economy is tanking but seriously you should open a factory in this town. Because we know how to party. But you know, safely.

Three Weeks To Go.

Even more so than the fear of turning this into a wedding blog, was my fear of turning this into a political soap box in which I could alienate friends and piss off my conservative family. I hate soap boxes. I dont even like soap that much.

Few are the political discussions I have ever been in (or anyone has been in for that matter) that have honestly changed the dogma of their opponent. And even fewer have not ended in blows (sometimes if you want someone to agree with you, you have to beat it into them. Thats my dogma, bitches.) Although I feel strongly about my politics, I love my relationships more, and thus do my damndest not to put the former before the latter.

But with three weeks left until the folks in Florida fail to properly punch their ballots again, I have decided to hitch up my skirts and give you an ear full.

Although I have always felt that equality is equality no matter who you love, my passion for the issue has become magnified by the intense rift it has created in my small community. Watching smug, ignorant people parade around with their vague but terrifying "protect parental rights:vote yes on 8" signs lights a fire under my complacent ass. Because I dont know a damn thing about economics, or global warming, or whether or not chickens should lay free range eggs, I tread carefully around those politics. But I do know a thing or two about marriage. I know how much I love G. I know how excited I am to be planning our wedding and how my palms sweat at the idea of walking down the aisle toward him. And I know how I would fight someone tooth and nail if they tried to take that day away from me.

And I refuse to believe that a love between a same sex couple is any less passionate, any less true, and any less deserving than mine.

That being said, here is some very pertinent info from the noonprop8.com website. Check them out.

Fiction: Teaching children about same-sex marriage will happen here unless we pass Prop 8.

Fact: Not one word in Prop 8 mentions education, and no child can be forced, against the will of their parents, to be taught anything about health and family issues at school. California law prohibits it, and the Yes on 8 campaign knows they are lying. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley has already ruled that this claim by Prop 8 proponents is “false and misleading.”

Fiction: Churches could lose their tax-exemption status.

Fact: Nothing in Prop 8 would force churches to do anything. In fact, the court decision regarding marriage specifically says “no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs.”

Fiction: A Massachusetts case about a parent’s objection to the school curriculum will happen here.

Fact: Unlike Massachusetts, California gives parents an absolute right to remove their kids and opt-out of teaching on health and family instruction they don’t agree with. The opponents know that California law already covers this and Prop 8 won’t affect it, so they bring up an irrelevant case in Massachusetts.

Fiction: Four Activist Judges in San Francisco…

Fact: Prop 8 is not about courts and judges, it’s about eliminating a fundamental right. Judges didn’t grant the right, the constitution guarantees the right. Proponents of Prop 8 use an outdated and stale argument that judges aren’t supposed to protect rights and freedoms. This campaign is about whether Californians, right now, in 2008 are willing to amend the constitution for the sole purpose of eliminating a fundamental right for one group of citizens.

Fiction: People can be sued over personal beliefs.

Fact: California’s laws already prohibit discrimination against anyone based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. This has nothing to do with marriage.

Fiction: Pepperdine University supports the Yes on 8 campaign.

Fact: The university has publicly disassociated itself from Professor Richard Peterson of Pepperdine University, who is featured in the ad, and has asked to not be identified in the Yes on 8 advertisements.

Fiction: Unless Prop 8 passes, CA parents won’t have the right to object to what their children are taught in school.

Fact: California law clearly gives parents and guardians broad authority to remove their children from any health instruction if it conflicts with their religious beliefs or moral convictions.

Stick A Fork In Me.

Last night I had a dream that my bed was made of crabs. I dont know what kind of Freudian mind fuck this comes from, and if I were to hazard a guess, well let's just say I would rather not hazard any damn guess at all. The point though, and let me know if this is obvious, is that such a dream led to a night of extreme tossing and turning.

I woke up this morning to a bed that could have easily been a crime scene, or a porn set. My sheet was twisted in a tight rope that wrapped itself not once, but fully twice around my leg and two of three pillows had decided to save themselves the abuse and had hurled themselves across the room.

And none of this means much in the grand scheme of things except that it is completely indicative as to the kind of day I have had.

I took the morning off to pay off my debt to karma/the Man, and visited the DMV. Figuring that if I got there right as they opened, I had a snowballs chance of not spending my golden years in a plastic chair designed by sadists. Running in at 9:15 (turns out I dont actually know how to get places right when they open), I am greeted by the saint peter of the DMV that hands me ticket number that reads G41. Seriously. Im not even in the A's. It's 9:15 and I am half way down the effing alphabet. I will cut out the grimy details, but suffice it to say my sad sack didnt get back in my car until 11:40.

Finally, sweating, (it is inexplicably 95 degrees outside. Its like God watched me put my summer clothes in storage and then decided to have a chuckle.) I made it into the office and realized I forgot my wallet to buy me some coffee. Which was the only thing that got me through my morning trek across bureaucracy.

I went to my next three meetings de-caffeinated and am only now getting around to checking email. Which, unlike the coffee in my system, is plentiful.

The moral here is, Im done. Im completely drained of any milk of human kindness, and fresh out of any give-a-damn. And its only Thursday. Which of course, is why the Lord invented wine.

Withdrawals.

The week was everything I needed out of a G visit. We fell flawlessly back into our routine, with our banter and our jokes and a few bitter fights to the death sprinkled in between (to keep the passion alive).

And in that short span of his visit, my apartment became this cocoon of relationship. From flawlessly clean and smelling like fresh linen (at least according to Bath and Body Works), it morphed into a wrinkled nest of half eaten baked goods, opened bottles of wine, twisted sheets, and a hale storm of The Office DVDs. Seriously slacking from any semblance of my usual regimented schedule, I spent seven days in my chonees and G's old dress shirt laughing and talking and kissing and touching and being perfectly. and utterly. happy.

But my stay-cation is up. G flew back to Germany and I am pulling myself together. And Im doing pretty well. I claw my way out of bed and to the gym at 6 a.m.. I get dressed and put on heels and click clack my way to work on time. I do my job and smile and try to be there for others in their time of need. And I hang out with friends. And I continue to tease Simon about being fat. And I try not to think about how fucking tragic it is that my apartment is flawlessly clean and smells like fresh linen.

Because honestly, as hard as I am tugging at those old proverbial boot straps, my breath still catches in my throat at least four million times a day. I miss everything about having him here. I miss living in our little rats nest world. I miss running my fingernails through his beard. I miss the smell of him next to me when I sleep. And most of all, at the end of the day, I miss being able to give myself up and lean on someone who wont let me fall.

That Time I Wasn't Patient.

So G is going to be here in three days. Saturday to be more exact. 4p.m. Pacific Standard Time. 73 Hours. And its not that I haven't seen him in three months. Or that Im really really looking forward to seeing him (and hopefully getting to second base, or you know, much much farther). Its the I'm fucking terrible at waiting for things.

When I get excited about something I get really antsy and fidgety and have a hard time focusing on things. Which, you know, works super good when one works for a living.

Its gotten better with age though. When I was a kid I would run around in figure eights when I was excited. (A.D.D. you say? Don't judge, I say.) Like this one time I remember I was really excited at the pool on account of the ice cream man (to this day I challenge you to find me something more awesome than the Pink Panther Ice Cream bar, and if you do, I'll have its children) and I slipped and fell down a stair and bruised my tail bone. Which I believe to be the most embarrassing bone to injure. Not being one for public displays of pain induced self groping, I hobbled into the womens locker room and, unable to sit, marched around holding my rear. And I didn't even get any ice cream.

Being at least a couple years past running around to express excitement, I am relegated to fidgeting in my office chair and eating what appears to be an endless supply of cookies in the hallway. If G doesn't get here soon I might give the old standby a try. I'll just try to be more careful around stairs.