The future is this moment

I had plans for several more blog posts this weekend. But here it is, Sunday night, and that's obviously not going to happen. So you'll have to settle for a catch-all post.

Anna had her very first equestrian event today at Canterbrooke Equestrian Center here in town. She has been taking lessons for at least a couple years now, but changed instructors last fall. This is the first year that she's really had enough skill to be in a show, and she was VERY excited about it. We got there at 8:15 this morning and, while Anna was on her practice walks on the horse, another horse got off of its tie and ran free. This agitated all the horses in the area, including the one that Anna was riding which started trotting off. Fortunately, Anna had the sense to get it under control, but the instructors in the area were of great help. There's nothing like seeing your kid on a spooked animal and being completely unable to do anything about it. She recovered pretty well, and it taught a valuable lesson about how sometimes, when you're scared, you just have to go through it anyway. Here she is, doing her best "Madonna-from-the-first-set-of-the-Confessions-Tour" (well, sort of.)


Heidi is going to have a table at Capital City Pride this year (June 12th/13th) - representing not just her own books but the whole of Dreamspinner (they paid the table fee!) There's a good chance that another Dreamspinner author will be coming in for the weekend as well, so it should be a good time. Between now and then, we probably should figure out how to procure a tent (Jeff tells me that Sam's Club should do the trick) and we'll have to order some more paperbacks of Heidi's three books (4 by the time Pride gets here.) Anyone in the area is encouraged to come out (no pun intended) and see us! We'll be there both Saturday night and Sunday during the day.

In related news, I was looking for a good shirt to wear to Pride this year. I determined it would be SO much easier if I were actually gay. The shirts that I've found on various web sites are just great. There are so many I would wear, but they just don't apply. I'm a bit annoyed by the "Not Gay (But Supportive)" T-shirt because I feel like it makes too big of a deal out of not being gay. Ultimately, I'll probably settle on something like this or this. Because you know, you can't wear just anything to Pride. I will admit to being slightly attracted to this one, but bromance is so last season.

I have the week of April 26th off of work and it can't come quickly enough. I'm going to play at being my father that week and try to get one little house thing done each day. Nothing big, nothing earth-shattering, but something each day. We're also going to be heading to Iowa City that week to see my sister and the Daddy-Daughter dance is that weekend as well. I'm sure there will be news to report from that.

As I mentioned on Twitter this weekend, I was in the mood to search through my heavily archived Gmail and I put in the search term "TMI." This brought up some amazingly funny results, both in e-mails I sent and in ones I have received from friends. I tell ya, there's a reason I archive everything and delete nothing.

I was doing up dishes tonight and the old Tina Turner song "Paradise Is Here" came on - I hadn't heard that song in forever. It was the live version from Tina: Live In Europe which I have always preferred to Break Every Rule version. There's an energy about the live performance, even though it's a ballad. More recently, Cher's version from It's A Man's World has co-opted Tina's version in my brain. I have no idea if Tina did the song first (I have a feeling that someone else did it before her) but for years, I thought hers was the only version out there. It was a late (and poorly charting) single from Break Every Rule, and up until tonight, I thought the only video out there was the live one (embedding disabled, rat bastards.) Not so.



The future is this moment, and not someplace out there. Words to live by.

More to come this week. I'm going to try to kick my blogging output into high gear.

Filled with pride

It was a long night last night on a lot of levels. I work late tonight and have a hellacious weekend ahead. But for whatever reason, I don't care, because same-sex marriage is finally legal in Iowa. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld a lower courts ruling that it violates the equal protection clause of the state Constitution. Not only did they do that, they did it UNANIMOUSLY.

I have lived my whole life in this state. I don't imagine that I will probably ever live outside of its borders - I am an Iowa boy through and through - and I have never, NOT ONCE, been more proud to be an Iowan than I am right this very instant. It is pretty much the polar opposite of how I felt when Prop 8 passed.

As one of the articles I read said - in politics, as goes Iowa, so goes the nation. One can only hope that it applies in this situation as well.

Well done, Iowa. The people at One Iowa must just be beside themselves.

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

This last weekend was Capital City Pride - delayed by the deluge from this June. I was not sure how Pride would play in autumn, but surprisingly, it was great fun, probably even more so than in the summer. A lot of that had to do with the fact that it was not 95 degrees and more humid than Dagobah, although it was still quite warm for October! Pride is always such a fun event, Anna really gets into it and the atmosphere is just so...well, it's hard to describe because while it's inclusive and celebratory, it is also very Midwestern.

Anna and Heidi rode on the One Iowa float. One Iowa, for those that don't know, is the group that is working their tails off for marriage equality here in Iowa. It still strikes me as odd that Iowa would be on the front lines of gay marriage, but then again, Iowans are pretty practical people so it really shouldn't come as a surprise. This was Anna's first time on a float and she hurled candy with the best of them. She even made sure that she threw a box of Dots my way (one of the small ones, not the big ones you get at movie theaters!)

One of the big highlights of Pride this year was Michelle Knight who is one of Iowa's premiere Cher impersonators. I have to wonder how much competition she has, but still, that is one dead ringer for Cher. Here she is riding in the parade, with "Believe" pumping out of the car. Even though the style (faux metal 80s leather Cher) and the song (late 90s dance diva Cher) were at odds, it still worked.

Of course, Anna HAD to meet Cher. We even got a picture!

Cher's comment to me right before the photo was being taken: "Oh, wait, let me hide the beer!" Anna's comment to me after the photo was taken "Dad, did you know that's a boy dressed up as Cher?"

The thing I love about Pride year after year (this is my third, Heidi and Anna's fourth) is that even though it is primarily the same thing each year, it is something that is so incredibly important to me. Supporting the gay community is something that I cannot feel more strongly about. I have long since forgotten why I got involved in LGBT rights issues, but there is no better way to get me riled up than to be idiotically homophobic. Part of it is that I have found a kinship among the gay community that has eluded me most of my life, but mostly, it is because I cannot stand to see basic rights that I take for granted being denied to people that I count as family.

Some would argue that I am using my daughter as a political pawn, not all that dissimilar to that moment in the Dixie Chicks movie where the little girl says "The Dixie Chicks suck!" But I can't imagine raising her any other way. Ultimately, if I'm wrong, I'll have to answer for it, but for now, I make the best decisions I can. And besides, she just likes to dress up like this.

I have no idea how much longer she'll want to do that, so I savor every year that she does it.

As my parting shot, here's Michelle Knight as Cher doing "If I Could Turn Back Time." I felt bad for her because she hardly got to do her routine, so many people were giving money! I doubt she had a problem with that though!



(full photo show on Facebook. I'll upload all of them to .mac eventually.)