Advice to Men

I mentioned before my grandmother’s strong reaction to my dad’s mustache. As was probably inevitable knowing my grandma, said reaction has now been immortalized in a poem.

Advice to Men

Tell me this!
Are men beset with facial gashes?
Is this why they wear moustaches?
All their glamour’s disappeared.
Who wants a kiss that’s mustard-smeared?

And that, of course, brings up the beard.
An attachment ladies all find weird
That gives them pause.
We’ll overlook their facial flaws…
A beard is just for Santa Claus!
The men we love all take the trouble
To shed thier daily prickly stubble.

Here’s advice I give you free.
Be it side-burns or goatee,
To romance, whiskers aren’t the key
Take me,
I crave no jewels, no gold, no loot,
Just a man who’s not hirsute!

[Note: I restricted the poem to only one form of typesetting emphasis, but I will note that the original made nice use of underlining, italics, and bold. I may have lost some subtlety in emphasis here. But I think you all can pick up the message. Men, get out your razors.]

Yes, kids, this is how we do it.

I already knew about Constance McMillen — the girl whose school decided to cancel the prom rather than let her show up in her tux with her girlfriend — but there’s tons of teenagers to be proud of in Gary Lapon’s article, Why can’t Constance bring her date?

I’m watching a CNN interview Lapon linked with a 10-year-old who wouldn’t say the pledge of allegiance (since gay people don’t have liberty and justice for all) and his dad and it is so awesome. I want to give that kid such a big hug. And his dad! He is just so full of bemused pride.

Wednesday Words: Grieving (and giggling and griping)

Those whose work was in the acute wards at the medical center knew at a glance what it meant. This was a man undergoing surgery without anesthetic — the slow, sawtoothed severing of himself from another human being somewhere inside the hospital.

– Richard K. Morgan, THIRTEEN

And since I’ve been so scandalously absent from blogging, here are two small bonus Wednesday Wordses that made me giggle. From the next page of THIRTEEN:

It’s Falwell. Nothing short of death stops that motherfucker.

(referring to an infectious disease spread by weapon, a very appropriate object for the Falwell signifier, I feel.) And:

It’s a metaphor for bad writing!

– My friend Aly during LOST last night. It was when we were enjoying the subtle shades of meaning behind Ben Linus digging his own grave. Don’t you like how they always include inconspicuous symbolism for the really sophisticated viewers to pick up?