I genuinely have no idea how much this will change the lives of the  gay and lesbian members of the military. Partially because I’m not in the military, and partially because I’m not

I recently read an article in Marie Claire about Navy women on submarines. This fall, for the first time ever, women are going to deploy underwater. The article was an interview with a super high ranking navel officer who also happens to have lady bits. When asked about sexual harassment underwater, she said:

I would say the leadership needs to set the tone, and everybody needs to understand that you’re part of a professional organization and professionals don’t treat each other unprofessionally. There are always going to be men out there who are going to try you as a woman to see: How far can I push you before I break you? And if something happens to our women going on board and they don’t act or say something and stop it, then that’s when that cancer grows.

The thing about being a woman on a submarine is that, unless you’re in some 50s farce where you’re undercover as a fella, people know you’re a woman. Not only are you bunking in more private quarters, you also – you know – pee sitting down and stuff. It’s a big deal that you’re there, and you have to own it.

In the quote above, the officer implies that women have a responsibility to call out mistreatment and inequality when they see it. I don’t necessarily agree with that in a broad sense – it’s a simplification that doesn’t take circumstances into account. In the submarine sense, I have literally no idea. Trapped underwater seems like both an important and dangerous place to take a stand.

Is there a corollary to gays? If you’re in the  military and you’re not heterosexual,  you’re a lot harder to identify than a woman on a sub. Unless you want that part of your life to be apparent to your coworkers, they don’t necessary have to know. Are there people who feel that individuals in that position have a responsibility to speak out? Again, it doesn’t seem like the safest environment – but it does seem like an important one.

I’m glad that such a stupid rule was finally recognized as such, but I’m curious as to how much of a difference it’s going to make in the day-to-day life of those that it affects. Will they be skipping through the fields, holding hands with their loved ones for all to see? Or will they just keep living their lives?

Anyway. YAY. Goodbye stupid rule. (In the Army, anyway. Sigh. Baby steps?)

Yesterday, I had a short day on campus (done at 11 due to a cancellation by my grader, who I am starting to think is never actually on campus yay!). I dragged my ass to the gym when I got back to Louisville, and then immediately headed over to Starbucks to meet the lovely Laura.

I beat her there.

I ordered some hot tea.

I found a table, set down my tea, set down my laptop, took off my jacket, and got ready to sit down. In the process of sitting down, I put my hand on the corner of the table, which, it turns out?, was not totally stable.

The tea that had been handed to me 25 seconds earlier spilled all over my forearm, and then my pants and school bag, and then the floor.

People immediately started handing me napkins and a very nice woman went up to the counter to ask for a towel. The barista told her they’d send someone out with a mop in a second.

I didn’t have more napkins, so I just stood there waiting – and I realized that my arm was burnt.

Like, burnt burnt.

I started to cry.

There was literally nothing I could do about it. It hurt like a motherfucker, my bag was wet, my pants were wet, and even my laptop had a few drops on it.

Everyone was looking at me, and I was crying. Like, tears streaming down my face crying, not like big whopping gasps of air snotty nose crying.

The thing is, it actually doesn’t sound that terrible. I mean, the burnt arm sucks. The barista gave me some burn cream as soon as she saw it, and I rinsed it under cold water and then slathered that on. Now it really only looks like a bad sunburn. The rest, though, what? It’s not like I know those people. It was like three Starbucks away from my home Starbucks (yes, a ‘Starbucks’ is a valid unit of measure). I won’t see any of them again, and they could all see that I was burnt, and probably they weren’t judging me anyway because people don’t really think that much about other people.

But still.

The rest of the day, I cried off and on. I said something sweet to Laura and got teary. Laura said something sweet to me and I got teary. Crockett ate something that I wanted to eat and I cried. I took a shower and it was hot and I cried. I scraped my arm with my jacket and I cried. We went to eat pizza with my mom and we got a table I didn’t like and I welled up.

I’m not actually sure what was going on. I don’t know if I felt dumb and that made me sensitive, or if my arm made me sensitive, or what.

All I know is that immediately following my tears in Starbucks, the whole rest of my day blew.

Starbucks is definitely not heaven.

Crockett: Are you going to do it?
Me: Nah. It’s a lottery to get in. There’s one in the fall though that you can just register for. (I turned the computer to show him.) It’s actually the weekend of my fall break. Wanna go to Moab in October?
Crockett: The weekend of October 16th? We don’t have anything else going on?
Me: Not that I can think of…
Crockett: Are you sure?
I pull up my calendar and show it to him.
Me: Nope, nothing planned. You want to go?
Crockett: stares.
Me: still not getting it.

It went on like this for longer than I’d like to admit. Eventually? He reminded me that the day of the race is also HIS BIRTHDAY.

Whoops.

I attended everything but the pizza party. When the pizza boxes opened and the other students descended on them with such rapidity that I’m pretty sure several of them accidentally ate parts of the cardboard boxes, I snuck out the back.

Yesterday, while sitting in my first class, I tweeted

@dollemma Guys, I found all the girls at my school! Turns out they were hiding in statistics courses.

My first class had 13 people in it, and 9 of them were women.

More than a few of them were women who had worked for awhile and then come back to school.

It’s basically like someone custom designed some friends for me and then shoved us all into a room together. “Here. You’re all 28 (cough*giveortake*cough) and you all like math and you are all going to be sitting here, three times a week, learning the same things. You’re welcome.”

Some of them already knew each other, and one was acting as social director for those who didn’t…

and I totally ignored them.

I was trying to explain why to Crockett, but I really have nothing. It may have been shyness, honestly, or it may just have been that I had other stuff to worry about on that first day of school.

Or, it may have been that I’m damn stingy with my time and have enough friends already, thankyouverymuch.

I could have had pizza with them. But I came home and had pizza with Crockett and my girls instead.

Antisocial for the win.

Me: Oh, did you hear that men who say they’re bisexual have not, in fact, been lying all this time?
Crockett: Did someone think they were?
Me: Apparently the scientists at Northwestern University were unsure.
Crockett: After they finished that study, did they turn their research towards bears and their woodland defecation?

Ahahahahaha.

I love having a smart man.

This scooter, to be exact.

I wanted one too…

so I took some pictures to see how I looked.

Awesome, is the answer.

When my mom was doing the actual purchasing, the woman behind the counter mentioned that she knows someone who has the same names as my mom (Catherine Rose).

My mom told her that when we were growing up, I had a friend who had a little sister whose name was also Catherine Rose. She turned to me and said, ‘you remember, Brian blah-didee-blah’s little sister?’

When I was about five, Brian blah-didee-blah lived in our neighborhood. I remember exactly three things about him.

1. He was in Boy Scouts.
2. He had a wooden fence in front of his house.
3. This one time I kissed him and then his family moved away and I thought it was my fault.

Let’s revisit that last one. I kissed him (on the cheek, I think, but still – a kiss), and then they moved. Like the next week. I didn’t even see him again, that I remember.

I’m sure that his parents had been planning the move. I might have even heard about it, at some point, and forgotten. Five year old brains are not known for their fact retention, you know?

It’s just that the timing made me think that it was linked. I kissed him and then they left.

It wasn’t until the day at the scooter store that I remembered this whole thing. I apparently just decided it was my fault and moved on. Until last week, I never revisited the event as an adult, to relieve my five year old self of culpability. There was just a little part of my brain that thought that I forced an entire family out of their hometown.

So, Brian, even though I know now that it’s unlikely that my slutty five year old ways drove you away, I want to apologize for the fact that I apparently thought that they did for 25 years and failed to feel guilty about it.

I hope that new town worked out for ya.

Har de har har, it’s HILARIOUS that a technology that we grew up with is tough for people who grew up with typewriters and books.

Crockett works for himself, and therefore has an office in our house. I (sort of) have an office too, but it’s in the guest room in the basement and there are spiders and no sunshine down there, so while Crockett is gone I’m working in his office. He has all sorts of neat toys.

This is an IM conversation we’re currently having.

Me: hi
Me: I know you told me last night, but how do I make the wireless keyboard and mouse work?
Crockett: turn on bluetooth on your laptop: Is there a weird-looking ‘B’ up in the menu?
Me: yesshhhh
Crockett: Or just go to ‘Bluetooth’ in system Preferences
Me: I found it
Me: is it automatic?
Crockett: no
Me: ok
Me: it’s on
Crockett: Choose “Set up bluetooth device…”
Me: ooooh I see
Me: this is magical
Crockett: (and make sure the keyboard and mouse are turned on)
Crockett: yes
Me: there are on buttons?
Me: I see no buttons
Me: well, aside from the obvious buttons

I’m not going to share the rest of the conversation with you, because there’s a part where I start banging on the mouse like a technically inept monkey. There are also several jokes about dongles that are only funny if you’re us (or 12 years old).

Let’s just say I see how it’s easy to lose track of new technologies*.

And that I hope any kids I might have are technically savvy. And patient.

* Yes, I KNOW bluetooth isn’t new technology. Shut up. No, seriously. Shut up.

Crockett: I’m not sure I want to see him cut his arm off. Maybe we should watch something else.

Me: Stop being a baby. This is going to be awesome.

… an hour later …

Me: Oh my god was that his NERVE? TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF!!!!

Crockett, in his infinite wisdom, did not respond with ‘stop being a baby’.

Of course, he also didn’t turn it off.

—

Yesterday, I left the house twice. Both times to walk the dogs.

—

I have more kale and chard and collard greens and spinach than any one person can eat (thanks, local farm produce delivery!). I literally have no idea what to do with it. What do they do in the south, cook it with cornmeal and bacon fat? (It’s possible that I think that cornmeal and bacon fat are the basis of every southern meal.)

For this upcoming delivery week, I had them swap out my kale for a coconut. I’m assuming it isn’t local.

—

With the exception of my workout clothes and Crockett’s old button-up shirts, I hate every single article of clothing that I own. I want Melinda Gordon’s outfits. (No? Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character in The Ghost Whisperer? Anyone? Bueller?)

Except that lame ass pant baby blue pant suit she wore in the second episode of the first season. Pleated front tapered leg trousers are no one’s friend.

—

My nose is all stuffy and my throat and my muscles hurt. I would like to say that I have a cold, but I’m pretty sure it’s a combination of allergies and that week and a half I took off from the gym while I was at summer camp.

—

Crockett is out of town for 11 more days.

That’s a lot of days.

I need a project.

Ooo – how about I burn all my clothes in the backyard? Bonfire!!

—

When I was in middle school, my friend Lacey and I were listening to the radio this one time. (We listened to the radio more than one time, but you know what I mean. Right? One specific time we were listening to the radio and that’s when this story happened. Yeah.)

On the radio, that one time, there was an ad for Trojan condoms, followed immediately by an ad that started out with some dude saying ‘ahhh, the sounds of summer’. His ‘ahhh’ was…. well, let’s just say it – orgasmic.

We, being like 14, thought that was the funniest thing we’d ever heard.

AHAHAHAHAH, we thought. Did the people who scheduled ads not have any idea how full of hilarity that was?

Now, of course, there are entire Tumblrs devoted to things like unfortunately adjacent billboards*.

Anyway – I was at summer camp in western New York last week. Adult summer camp. (Really Crockett and I were just visiting his family and friends, but there was a definite summer camp air to the whole thing.)

• Social hour – did you know bars around Buffalo stay open until 4? 4 am? AM AS IN IN-THE-MORNING? (Interestingly, the trade off here seems to be that you can drink later but your beer choices are limited to Labatt and your wine choices are limited to things that come in single serving screw top bottles.)
• Sightseeing – I’ve decided the Great Lakes are some kind of gigantic practical joke. After seeing Erie (from the road), Superior (from a plane), and Ontario (from shore and from a catamaran), I now believe that ‘great’ was someone being funny. Like calling Iceland … well, Iceland. Someone thought to themselves, “what should we call these motherfucking enormous mini-oceans? How about the North American Freshwater Seas? Nah… let’s just call ‘em ‘great’. That’ll be hilarious. Silly girls from Colorado will stare like open-mouth yokels when they see how big these things are.”
• Arts and crafts – I made a purse with Crockett’s mom.
• Games – Crockett’s childhood friends kicked my ass at Foosball. And Cornhole. Oh, and Flip Cup. And life, basically. I blame it on the humidity. And the beer.
• Food – 17 barbecues. A cupcake competition (which I didn’t enter, due to …. lameness on my part, I suppose.)

Ice cream cones the size of my head.

Now I’m back home, and I’m distinctly lacking in scheduled fun. I do have a lot of laundry to do. And a lot of work to do.

Is ‘adult-summer-camp counselor’ a job?

No, really.

* I could have sworn this was true, but now I can’t find a single one. The one I’m thinking of has someone doing yoga next to something that looks like a fart. I know, sounds hilarious. I bet you’re really sad I can’t find it. Also, who knew you could see a fart?