Recently, the woman who The Gary and I speak of as The C*nt, Ann Coulter, smeared former U.S. Sen. John Edwards with the word “faggot” at the CPAC conservative political activist meeting.  A storm of response from both Dems and even Repugs brought her to the defense: “c’mon, it was just a joke.”  Conservative columnist and gay Republican writer for Atlantic Magazine Andrew Sullivan responds here.

Over the past six years, Sullivan has gone from Republican shill to a man who opposed Bush in ’04 and supported Kerry over the issue of wild government spending, from a proponent of the Iraq invasion to an anti-war activist, and from a gay man who made excuses for the religious right of the GOP to one who can no longer abide the hypocricy in that party.

He treats Coulter seriously, which I cannot.  As a result, he has a reasoned response when all I have is epithets and more name calling.  He’s a grown up and I’m not. 

So, read Andrew since all I have to say to Ann Coulter is:  “cunt!”

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I indulged myself last week and bought a crock pot.  I haven’t had one for some time.

So, I went to the store and bought some meat and put it in the new crock pot with two potatoes, a slew of them li’l carrots and a medium sized red onion.   Slathered some Woo-chester-shire sauce and some cajun seasons over the top and let ‘er rip.

Nuthin’ fancy.

Well, I’m as proud of this baby as if I’d invented sliced bread.  YUM.

Trouble is, I’m eating alone.

I hate that.

I grew up with a family and had a family of my own and eating has always been a communal ritual as much as nourishment for the body for me. 

A meal alone, well, it just doesn’t measure up to the crackle of conversation around a table.

Myself, I toasted up some sourdough bread and let that meat fall all over it and mashed up the taters and poured the simmmerin’ sauce over the taters and had about a tablespoon of the little carrots kinda off to themselves so the juices don’t mix any more than they already have for six or so hours.

Made me think of my children having to endure my plain cooking for the years I was a stay at home dad.  It’s funny to think of the times I fried potatoes with onions for teenagers in those years.  I miss those times.  I was in law school.  Life was pretty good.

I can make marinara sauce not out of a bottle and boil that pasta al dente.

Since it’s just me, though, I don’t feel like going to all the trouble of cleaning up after myself and after cutting up the credit cards, I can’t afford to go out to eat as much as I once did.  Lately, I’ve eaten a lot of meals standing over the kitchen sink.  Too many of those “meals” consisted of something on a saltine cracker.

Some of you know that every once in a while, I’ll haul off and make beans and ham with cornbread, spring onions and sweet ice tea.  Yeah, bay-bee.

which brings me back to the crock pot.  I figure this way, I can have a decent meal for a couple of days and not have to be a stay at home schmuck. 

And, that’s all to the good.

But, I miss having someone to share it with.

I also make a pretty good second chef in a kitchen when a big meal is being prepared because I like to chop vegetables and such and can put together a helluva elaborate “farmer’s” salad.  I also don’t mind being the one who tidies up as we cook and go along so that there’s always open counter space.  I even like going to search in the pantry for the spices and will, if suitably enticed, stir.

I’m not all that fond of things that must be stirred while heated, especially if opaque.  They scare me.  I’ve never really been able to force myself to burn the flour to make a good rue.

Once upon a time, I did a lot of hamburger cooking, but it seems I don’t do that at all anymore.  Wonder why that is?

Maybe this summer I’ll make everyone come over to my mom’s pool and I’ll cook burgers from dusk to dawn.  Eh. Maybe not.

Tonight, as I finish my amazing home made meal at my lonely table, jazz is on the music box in the living room and Sinatra is quiet, having been treated by a time outside since it was such a fine day.

It’s my sister’s birthday!  Happy birthday, left coast sister!

I took off today since it was so pretty.  Drove out to Hefner and stood on the North edge of the dam.  Took the top down on the Mid Life Chrysler.  Listened to Van Morrison.

I hate these full moons!

Man, I’m missing you tonight.  I’m not so much lonely while alone tonight as I am nostalgic for you.  I wish you were here.

I miss the way your lips caressed mine, the way it felt when you nuzzled my chest and tucked your shoulder under my arm.  I yearn for the way your breath feels on my neck.

I’m not trying to do it, but I keep thinking about the way you hold your knife and fork and eat while talking to me animatedly.  I can “hear” you cackling with laughter and rattling on with raucous commentary as we drive along in the Miata, top down despite the fact it’s too hot or cold to be strictly comfortable.

As the radio plays or the CDs unstack, I can feel the heat of your belly mixing with the heat of mine through our clothes as we sway to an indeterminate but slow beat.  We and we alone scuff along the dance floor — at least until the song is over and our eyes open to the world around us.

Damn, I miss you.

I miss sleeping with you.  I mean literally sleeping with you.  Holding you in my arms for the warmth of you.  Waking up smelling you on the pillow and sheets. 

I miss your furrowed reading brow and the dance of cooking in the kitchen.

I yearn for you.

I would listen to all the world’s hateful words three times over without hurt for just another evening of ease with you, when the silence could sometimes be as comforting as the words.

You’re whispering in my ear now.  something about taking myself so seriously.  Ahhh.  Your voice.  The feel of your breath and the smell of it.  God, the smell of it.  How it changed “coppery” at the most heated times.

Oh, how I loved your pout and your triumphs and glories!  How I miss your pride and your thin skin!

Across a room filled with party-goers, with my back turned and engaged in another conversation, I would recognize your sotto voce and giggle.  Ah, but that memory pains me.  I loved the way you swam in my waters so effortlessly, born to it. 

Yet, every moment that passes increases the gulf between us just as I’m trying to hold you so very closely in my memory.

You fucking broke my heart, you bitch

I’ve got my laptop back!  It’s all revved up with a new battery that frees me from the power cord and I’ve jumped from 256Mg of memory to a gig. 

I have this theory that processor speed and memory are to this age what horsepower and fins were to men in the 50s.  Geeks endlessly compare operating systems and hardware.  In the end, though, it’s all a sex thing.  The teen boys of my youth thought that fast and stylized cars would get them the hot babes just like geeks think better computers will get them more porn downloads when offline.  Both wrong, but both with comforting thoughts for the incessantly masturbatory.

I’m Freudian about a lot of things, though.  I have a very elaborate theory that Republican politics is all about repressed sex.  Welfare becomes an issue about black women having babies; abortion is about young girls having sex; gun control is about the phallic symbolism of gun barrels; and so forth. 

Materialism, the root of MCARP’s diatribe about malls over on 3:40 a.m., is about getting laid.  I’ve even been known to quip — ruefully — that $30 million will make me much more handsome.  Goofballs get the idea that women are drawn to financially successful men.  ( Where would they get that idea?  Cootie-covered girls, of course. )  How else to better show one’s evolutionary success than by ostentatious display of wealth?  Big car, flashy clothes, big house, blah blah and bagatele.  Yet, when it comes to the relationships that women SAY they really want, how good is it to be married to a guy who’s married to his job so that he can keep generating the goods?  If, by “success”, what we mean is an evolved male who can share his emotions, then the financial pinnacle seems the least likely place to look.  How, though, can a man show he is an evolved human without some display of some kind of material goods?  Do I show I’m all warm and cuddly by wearing  hemp vests?  Are my environmental concerns adequate if I have a $3 bumper sticker on my $30,000 Volvo (“vulva” sounding name for a substitute penis)?

So, I want all the hot internet babes to know I’ve got a convertible, a nice house, a few bagateles, that I’m all about therapy and couples counseling and, by the way, I’ve got a hot laptop with a gig of RAM and a new battery so I can go wireless at the Red Cup where I hang out with all the other evolved people who are concerned about the environment and buy “fair trade” coffee and all that.