Don’t worry, I’m not dead
I really do intend to get this thing alive again. I really do. But, let’s face it, I have two bloody children. It’s frequently 9pm before all the offspring are abed, which gives me roughly 90 minutes for myself before I have to start considering getting my beauty sleep. Last night I spent those 90 minutes installing a new toilet seat upstairs because my obese ass cracked the old one. So you can see where finding time for updates is, well, non-existent. I will try and do better.
I do have plans to discuss the Triathlon I did 2 weeks ago, and in fact started a post on that subject, which I’ve not had time to work on since, well, the day after the Triathlon. So, you know, don’t hold your breath too long. Although, frankly, the fact that a 257-pound human successfully completed a triathlon might be a tidbit that would cause you to expire from surprise anyway.
In lieu of coming up with something hilarious and original, I can offer a particularly foul-mouthed quote or two from a story on the feelings of elite soldiers on DADT by Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic:
As one former member of a special missions unit put it to me recently, “It’s really about competence. If you’re competent, it doesn’t matter who you are.” And then, switching instantly from an analytical posture to a machismo mode, he said, “If a guy saves my ass, he sure as hell can look at it.”
Damn right. To folks who are afraid of gays in the military, what exactly is the issue? Are you afraid of getting propositioned? I can count the number of times I’ve been hit on, in 32 odd years, on one hand, so I’m afraid you’re not getting any sympathy from me. I’d relish the thought of a gay guy finding me attractive, with the exception of the freaky gentleman that kept cruising me at a gay club in London in 2003, and the problem there was not his homosexuality but the fact that he was at least as old and doughy as my father, and wearing a white T-shirt and black pants that were at least 3 sizes too small.
How, exactly, is being hit on by a gay guy any different than being hit on by a particularly ugly woman? Either way, you just have to say “no thanks,” and usually that puts a stop to it.
The next quote has some particularly naughty language:
One soldier — call him Ben — checks his e-mail. “Fuck,” he says. He opens his cell phone and makes a call. … A beat. … “Heeeey cock breath, how are you?” … “Yeah, that sucks.” “Yeah, why is he doing this to us again?” “No, he told me his partner was in town for the weekend and he really needed to see him.” … “Dude, why can’t he break way for one weekend!”
The conversation continues.
“Yeah, well, you know I’m just going to come over and [perform an obscene act involving testicles — this IS The Atlantic, after all, and I already typed ‘cock breath’].”
He hangs up.
What was that about, I asked?
“Oh, this guy we haven’t seen for a while is in town, a really good buddy, but his partner is also in town and he wants to see him. So we were just complaining that he wanted to see his partner rather than hang with us.”
The soldier reminds me a bit of myself (minus the part where he’s undoubtedly in pristine physical condition and well-trained in the art of combat, and I’m filled with clotted cream and frequently walk into doorframes). For kids of my generation, you grew up insulting your friends by calling them either “gay” (or one of its many derivatives, such as “gaywad” or “gayon”) or “retarded,” sometimes combining the two into particularly biting forms such as “gaytarded.” It’s something I struggle with even now, because my first instinct upon hearing moderately poor news (such as “turns out that John won’t be coming, he’s got to work” or “I don’t like eggplant, it’s gross”) is to think, and possibly say if I’ve been overserved, “That’s gay” or “You’re a retard.” And yet you will be hard pressed to find a greater advocate for the rights of LGBT men and women that isn’t actually LGBT than I.
The fact that the soldiers use words like “cock-breath” and (I’m assuming) “tea-bagging” is not the salient point. The fact that the soldier used those words and clearly has no problem with homosexuality is. I think it’s a perfect reminder that political incorrectness is by no means an indicator of someone’s actual feelings on a subject.
