Being a scrupulous Virgo, she makes every effort not to appear to care whether people think she is stylish, well-groomed or whatever...even though she tends to trim her moustache using a micrometer.
However, this morning, after the traditional 7 AM Sunday-champagne-on-the-porch with Joe and Nancy, the neighborhood houseparents across the street, Walhydra was moved to cook a Real Breakfast for herself and still snoring hubby Jim.
[Note: Being a Leo, JimJim, like any true cat, tries to sleep for at least 18 hours a day.]
Real Breakfast means driving to Publix—beware the champagne euphoria, please—to get the Times, free-range eggs, portabello mushrooms, butter, capers, majoram, fresh mangoes and blackberries, brewing fresh coffee (French press, of course), and whipping up omelettes and fruit on the side for her honey.
Yum!
Walhydra's reward for this was that hubby Jim actually read a whole, marvelous article for her, Cindy Chupack's Modern Love column, "An Ancient Coda to My 21st-Century Divorce."
[Cindy Chupack is the author of The Between Boyfriends Book. This essay is adapted from the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, to be published this month by Dutton.]
Being a writer, Walhydra wants to respect the intellectual property rights of Ms. Chupack (and the Times), so she won't repost the whole piece here. Nonetheless, she has to show you some bits that made the Sunday-breakfast-at-home-with-my-gay-hubby morning even more of a delight.
I WAS finally getting married. That’s what I kept telling people. I didn’t say I was finally getting married “again,” because bringing up a first marriage during the planning of a second is a major buzz kill for everyone involved....Ms. Chupack proceeds to tell the story of catching up with her ex...because the "hot rabbi" said she ought to get a get, a Jewish divorce decree, so that her potential children by her new hubby would not be considered illegitimate.
And I didn’t want to hang that cloud over my fiancé, Ian, because this was his first wedding (another term I didn’t like, because it implied he may have a second). So we tried not to talk about first or second anythings until our meeting with the rabbi.
Ian called our rabbi “the hot rabbi” because she was young and hip and, well, hot. I didn’t mind his calling her hot. In fact, I found it reassuring, because it was yet another indication that Ian was not gay. Above all, I wanted to avoid publicly declaring my love for someone only to have him later realize he’s gay. Again.
Yes, O.K., so that’s what happened the first time, and that’s what I told the hot rabbi when she asked if either of us had been married before.
She blinked, and nodded — appropriately unfazed. Then she asked, “Was he Jewish?”
This seemed like a moot point to me, but I told her yes, he was....
Among the most remarkable things about [my new hubby Ian] was that after hearing my story, he remained straight.
During the divorce process I was toying with stand-up comedy, and my friend and fellow comic Rob had been endlessly fascinated by my story, asking: “What were the signs? How did he tell you?”
A year later, Rob came out, forcing me to see, in retrospect, that for him the hero of my story was my husband.
At a Hollywood party, I told my story to a cute guy I thought was flirting with me only to learn that he already was married. To a man. He explained that he had never even dated men until he met his husband while traveling abroad.
Then I told that story to my friend who was the host of the party, and he confessed that he was bisexual, which he said was often difficult for potential partners to comprehend. For example, he asked, how would I feel about dating him?
When I realized his question was not rhetorical, I blushed and declined.
Then I told that story to a male friend I knew to be straight, and he also confessed he was thinking of dating men, but after coming out to his stunned parents and trying a couple of gay relationships, he decided he was more interested in women, and he’s now married to a woman who had previously considered herself a lesbian.
My feeling, at this point, when everyone’s sexuality seemed to be in flux, was simply: Pick a side! I’m fine with it all! Just declare a major!
The rest of the story is a beautiful affirmation of gay marriage by this bright straight woman, but Walhydra will leave the gentle reader to view it at length. She'll just give you one more short selection:
It’s not often a girl has the chance to have lunch with the man she thought she would have children with and the man he had them with, but the truth is, they were a pretty perfect family without me.As a bonus, Walhydra herself stumbled onto this other piece in the same Styles section: Bob Morris' The Age of Dissonance article, "Global Yawning." Here's the first part of it:
I had met my ex-husband’s partner at a Christmas party years earlier and liked him immediately. He was handsome, smart, kind and funny, and whether it was accurate or not, I found it flattering to imagine that he was the male version of me.
Now they’d adopted two beautiful boys. As I watched my ex-husband juggle juice boxes and crayons and children’s menus, he smiled and warned: “Get ready.”
I was running errands the other day when a pleasant young woman with a clipboard tried to stop me. “Do you have a moment for the environment, sir?” she asked.Read it.
“No,” I barked as I evaded her, “I don’t!”
I felt guilty, but also vindicated. I mean, of course I have a moment for the environment. Saying you’re not for the environment right now is like saying you’re not for education, children, world peace, Africa or a cure for cancer. These days you would have to be a fool or a lobbyist to dismiss global warming and natural resource issues.
But is it possible that all this marketing is cheapening the cause?
Must every hotel, restaurant, shampoo, detergent and beverage that is environmentally responsible talk so much about it? Yuban “sustainable development” coffee. Paul Mitchell “protecting our planet for generations to come.” Levi’s Eco jeans.
How much green-standing can we stand? It’s enough hot air to melt Antarctica.
In no time, an inconvenient truth has become an obnoxious one.
But from what I can see, there’s as much selling as thinking going on.
And enjoy the day.
Blessèd Be.
