Belle Weather

by Celia Rivenbark

  Speaking of which, there was hubby again, still crowing about his height advantage.

  That night, he suggested we should go see An Inconvenient Truth but I wanted to see Big Momma’s House 2 instead. Hmmm. Two hours of Al Gore earnestly yammering about melting ice caps versus Martin Lawrence going undercover as an old fat lady to kick some terrorist ass. Talk about your no-brainer.

  My self-esteem was taking a beating, though. I was short and therefore not smart and my fox-trot looked more like the frothy lunging movements of a rabid wolf.

  As if all this wasn’t enough, hubby came home one day showing me an article he’d seen about how Leos are better drivers. As in the ass-trological sign, not as in DiCaprio.

  Leos, of which duh-hubby is one, are the best drivers on the road according to a new study, although I’m not sure it’s right.

  Wasn’t this the same man who had borrowed my car recently and returned it with a missing side mirror because he hit an ambulance?

  “Well,” he pouted. “That ambulance was asking for it.”

  As a Virgo, I was curious to see where I stood. After all, Virgos are known for uncommon wisdom and restraint in all matters except perhaps the reading of Soap Opera Digest and eating fried pickles with ranch dressing.

  Turns out Virgos ranked fourth. Not bad, but not great. Libras were the worst, by the way.

  What does it all mean?

  Well, as we all know, the auto insurance industry is forever on the lookout for ways to ensure that its clients are paying the lowest possible premiums, so you should probably bring the study to the attention of your agent the next time you’re up for renewal. I’m sure the agent will hasten to reduce your policy rates unless he has choked on his own laughter and dropped dead. Then again, if you’re a Libra, you might want to lay low and hope the insurance company never finds out or you’ll wind up driving one of those little wind-up bikes beside the highway with all the drunk losers.

  Our daughter’s a Gemini, which was second best, and I’m relieved, even though she’s still eight years away from getting her license. However she will never be allowed to ride with Libras (duh) or the other signs in the bottom three, Aries and Aquarius. She also won’t be allowed to ride with Scorpio men because everyone knows they have just one thing on their mind.

  In the meantime, hubby was convinced he was superior for another reason: He had gotten very, very good at Sudoku. An evil temptress, the cheap little tart, flimsy and soulless as paper, was stealing his heart every single night as we climbed into bed.

  Who knew that “Sudoku” was Japanese for “You’re not getting laid again.”

  Men can’t resist these “wordless crosswords” that act as kryptonite to the entire Victoria’s Secret inventory.

  At least I know I’m not alone.

  My friend, Susie, said she emerged from the bathroom recently trailing the scent of luscious bath oils and wearing a new black chemise. There was passion in her eyes as she walked toward the bed and saw her hubby, Fred, fretfully erasing and muttering.

  “Honey?” she purred softly. “How do you like my outfit?”

  Fred looked up for a second, grunted distractedly, and returned to his puzzle. “In a minute,” he said. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that eight. What was I thinking?”

  Yes, Fred, what were you thinking?

  Frankly, Southern women don’t know how to fight the Sudoku slut. We’re usually quite gifted at dispatching man-encroaching hoochies to the four winds but this?

  To be fair, which I just hate, we may have been doing some ignoring our own selves. Did we not just say no when Lifetime premiered The Mermaid Chair? But this was Kim Basinger seducing a priest while her crazy mama hovered in the background and chopped off her own fingers one by one! Surely we get a pass for that.

  To be rejected for a bunch of blank squares just seems wrong. Still, I guess I understand.

  Sudoku lures men away from us with promises of being “light and easy,” qualities any thinking male absolutely loves. But then they better beware. Next is “demanding” and, finally, Sudoku becomes “very challenging.”

  Oh, sure, Sudoku is all “beer and ballgames are fun!” at first but watch out, guys. Before long, there are three numbers where there were once six already filled out and, next thing you know, it’s “Mama’s coming to live with us and I need me a Lexus and I signed us up for ballroom dance lessons starting next week.”

  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  20

  Gay Men Love Me

  Hons, there’s something about me that you should know: I don’t like to brag, but gay men love me.

  I mean love me. I’m like the poor (gay) man’s Liza Minnelli or Barbra Streisand. OK, the very poor man’s version, but you get the idea.

  I’ve been a magnet for gay men for as long as I can remember and I have to say that I adore them right back. That said, there’s something I don’t get about straight guys: Why are y’all so threatened by gay men? They’re not going to bother you because, frankly, have you even looked at your ratty-ass cuticles lately?

  As a Friend to All Gay Men I’ve Ever Met (and thanks, by the way, Fernando, for telling me about Spanx. If I was younger and unmarried, I swear I’d have one of those turkey-baster babies with you), I’d just like to say that my one community college psychology course taught me that when people yammer all the time about how they hate somebody else’s lifestyle, it may be because they’re secretly attracted to it.

  Remember the Reverend Ted Haggard? He was a famous gay-basher who, it turned out, oopsie daisy, had engaged in repeated amorous encounters with a gay prostitute. This didn’t come out until the gay prostitute saw Haggard on the news one night giving one of his famous anti-gay tirades and dude was big-time “WTF?” So, he alerted the media and Haggard finally confessed to a lapse in his normal completely heterosexual wife-and-kids-and-steak-every-Friday-night lifestyle in exchange for some mind-blowing moonie goonie with the male prostitute.

  Not to worry, though. After three weeks of “intense counseling” Haggard was pronounced cured and “completely heterosexual.”

  I imagine gay men everywhere breathing a sigh of relief at that.

  So what does a “reformed” gay man do when he gets “cured”? In Haggard’s case, he announced that he was going to pursue his master’s degree in psychology.

  Isn’t that just the most arrogant thing you’ve ever heard? He gets “un-gay” in three weeks (which, incidentally, is one whole week less than it took Sandra Bullock to kick Val-yum in the movie 28 Days) and he’s ready to tell the rest of us how to live.

  Psychology? I’m thinking Midas Muffler School might be a better fit. Rev, read all the psychology books you want to while you’re eating that ham and cheese sandwich at your desk between (ahem) lube jobs, but don’t try to work on our heads. You think that you can go from gay to straight in twenty-one days, so that tells me right away that you’re Unabomber levels of crazy.

  Gay men must get mighty tired of sanctimonious blowhards like Haggard putting them down and telling them it’s their choice to be gay and just snap the hell out of it.

  Even when a straight man tries to sound all magnanimous and enlightened, it can backfire. Case in point: Shavlik Randolph, the NBA player who said it would be OK, sort of, for a gay pro basketball player to come out.

  “As long as you don’t bring your gayness on me, I’m fine,” he said.

  Sure, don’t bring your gayness but could ya maybe bring some of that fabulous potato salad that you brought to the season opener cookout?

  Bring your gayness on me?

  Still, at least Randolph doesn’t claim to speak for anyone other than himself. Like most heterosexual men, he’s completely freaked out by gay men and he admits it. He might want to dig a little deeper as to why he’s threatened by them but that’s his business.

  The king of sanctimony has to be the Reverend James Dobson, whose Focus on the (Not Gay!) Family series has millions of followers.

 
Dobson hates gays like Southerners hate toll roads. You could almost say it’s an obsession.

  After all, it was Dobson who first pointed out that there was a distinct possibility that SpongeBob SquarePants is gay.

  Yes, the cartoon character.

  In the words of SpongeBob’s long-suffering co worker Squid-ward, “Oh, my aching tentacles.”

  Dobson is the chronically humor-impaired spokesman for the Christian right. That’s how I know he wasn’t joking when he told a roomful of rich supporters that SpongeBob appeared in a “pro-homosexual video” along with other known cartoon deviants including Barney the dinosaur (duh, he’s gay because he’s purple) and Jimmy Neutron, who, while not purple is highly intelligent and therefore suspect.

  Dobson said that the video would be watched by millions of elementary school students and includes a reference to being “tolerant of differences.” The nerve! Who does SpongeBob think he is? Jesus Christ? Tolerance will not be, uh, tolerated. Oh, and tolerance is quite possibly closely connected to gayance.

  As a longtime Methodist Sunday School teacher and a huge fan of Mr. SquarePants, I’m uniquely qualified to say that, having watched every single episode, I see nothing un-Christian in the lifestyle of Bikini Bottom’s most famous resident.

  In contrast, SpongeBob consistently puts others first and returns good for evil. He turns the other cheek time and again to his miserly and cruel boss, Mr. Krabs, and has even made heroic efforts to befriend the very unlovable Plankton, the Zaccheus of the undersea world, as it were.

  I can see why Dobson would dislike SpongeBob, though. His best friend is a pink starfish named Patrick (what a gay name!) and sometimes they even walk and skip arm in arm.

  Dr. Dobson, as Aunt Ovaleen used to say when the Sunday sermon hit a little too close to home, you’ve done gone from preachin’ into meddlin’.

  If you persist in tarnishing the good name of the gentle-spirited, yea, Christ-like, SpongeBob, it will be obvious that you’re the one who must live in a pineapple under the sea. With your head firmly planted in the sand.

  Besides, it doesn’t take gaydar to know that SpongeBob isn’t gay. He wears a short-sleeved shirt with a clip-on tie, for God’s sake. No gay man alive would wear that frighteningly tacky combo.

  To be honest, I prefer to deal with men who are straight or gay and comfortable with that. It’s the mishmashy metrosexual that I don’t get. That’s why I was glad to read that the era of this famously Details reading, Abercrombie-on-the-weekend wearin’, sushi-lovin’, orchid-growing man-hybrid is finally, mercifully over.

  Of course, hubby missed the whole metrosexual movement for lack of interest.

  When we visited the cosmetics wonderland that is Ulta, I noted the huge section of skin and hair products just for men. In contrast, hubby noted that the Barnes & Noble across the street would probably have the newest fantasy league baseball magazine and he ran out of there like his clothes were on fire.

  Here’s a refresher for those of you who don’t understand fantasy league baseball. This is when you draft real players for your pretend team and then your pretend team plays with other pretend teams and, when the real season is over, you see where your pretend team ranks and you celebrate by going out with all the other guys to buy really top-drawer exfoliating products.

  Kidding!

  But, like I say, I was always kind of underwhelmed with the whole metrosexual thing. Be gay; be straight; but for God’s sake, pick one.

  I don’t like men who flirt with women in the arugula section while softly bitching about the declining quality of their favorite Chilean merlot.

  Metrosexual dads wear me out, too. They’re the ones at the playground who loudly brag about the “just a mere hint of asiago” they use in their homemade salad dressing to entice little Audubon to eat more veggies.

  “Man up!” is the new battle cry and men are urged to eat hamburgers dripping with Paris Hilton and avoid toasting beers at the top because that’s too much like man-kissing and similar rubbish.

  As you can see, it’s hard to get the balance just right. I say: Be gay if you’re gay; be straight if you’re straight.

  From a perfectly selfish point of view, I’m glad to see the end of the metrosexual man because they always made me feel a little guilty. Their skin was smoother and it irked me to hear them carping about sheets with low thread counts.

  “Go change some oil!” I wanted to shriek every time one of them sidled up to me at a picnic and wanted to discuss the latest Oprah book club pick with me. You don’t like Nicholas Sparks so don’t pretend you do, asshole.

  In contrast, if gay men want to talk about the best French coffee press or debate whether tilapia is the new monkfish, I’m all in. But metrosexuals? What is that?

  Ultimately, even the metrosexuals grew weary with all that forced shaving, sharing, and shopping. Turns out they really don’t give much of a shit about which of the hand-painted porcelain drawer pulls at Restoration Hardware makes the boldest statement on the armoire, so stop the hell asking them.

  As for hubby, he never knew what he missed. He’s the kind of guy who would just assume that “Asiago” was a little-known left-handed reliever throwing in the Dominican leagues.

  While I’m not sure exactly when metrosexuals just stopped, it may have been when they sauntered by one of those new Hooters-style barbershops like Bikini Cuts, where scantily clad women cut your hair and are even trained to make “sports small talk” with male customers.

  As in, “Sooooo, how about that Boise State?” coos the leggy stylist with the rambunctious rack.

  Yeah, girls can say stuff like “rack,” too.

  One of these chains brags that you can sit in a “state of the art” massage chair and catch the latest “flicks.”

  OK, your cool quotient is as nonexistent as Ann Coulter’s conscience. Flicks? I haven’t heard that slang word for movies since The Smurfs went off the air.

  At Bikini Cuts in Salt Lake City, you can even check out your stylist on-line. The girls, all wearing the equivalent of three Chinet cocktail napkins, have a wide range of interests. A typical profile promised that the stylist liked old people, vanilla lattes, and Mel Gibson movies.

  Just call ’em girls gone mild!!

  These manly barbershops would never have been acceptable to the metrosexual, who would peevishly carp about how they objectify women of which his mother and sister happen to be one. But those days are gone.

  The naughty barber shops provide an opportunity for manly bonding in a comfortable way. In other words, not quite sharing ranch-hand duties in a pup tent at Brokeback Mountain but more in a “Whoa, check out the calzones on Misty Sue” kind of way.

  I thought about all this stuff—the gay, the straight, the metrosexual, the calzones—while I waited for my eighty-four-year-old father to get his hair trimmed at Great Clips. Everyone kept their clothes on and I thanked God for it.

  There was no sports talk, only four other men of varying ages discussing their back problems.

  And none of them knew diddly-squat about asiago.

  21

  Penguins, Sir Paul, Rednecks

  Unlucky in Love

  Even though about half of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, people keep getting married. I figure that’s because we Americans are, by nature, hopeful creatures. Our marriage won’t fail; that’s for other people.

  So we have engagement parties and bridal showers and a registry at Target and never once do we imagine that we could be the couple that ends up separated in less than a year and squabbling over who’s got custody of the waffle-stick maker.

  Lately, technology has taken the place of the annoying first cousin matchmaker in the family and, on the surface, eHarmony and the rest seem to make a lot of sense. At least with “29 Dimensions of Compatibility” you’ve got a fighting chance, it would seem. With eHarmony, for instance, you are matched with someone who’s a lot like you, almost scarily so. But it’s not like when Eddie Van Halen married Valerie Bert
inelli or Mick married Bianca because she looked exactly like him because that was all about the physical stuff. With eHarmony, they ask hundreds of highly specific questions. It’s deep, y’all.

  And while some people sniff at this, preferring to believe in the romantic notion that “opposites attract,” I have to think that eHarmony founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren may be on to something.

  I know three couples who are happily married after meeting through eHarmony. Their apparent success would seem to indicate that the compatibility thing works, especially if you’re in it for the long haul and not just a few frisky moments of sparks-flying, toe-curling sex.

  But, as my friend, Maybelline, complained after trying a few on-line dating services unsuccessfully: “There ain’t nothing out there for the rednecks.”

  Of which she is one, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.

  Maybelline is a terrific woman, but listing one of her “unique attributes” as the “ability to pee off the side of my daddy’s bass boat while standing” wasn’t the sort of thing most on-line dating services could really appreciate.

  As I told Maybelline, if she had toned this down to simply “I enjoy fishing and urinating at the same time” it might have sounded a little better.

  Then again, maybe not.

  Unlike Dr. Warren, I don’t own a soothing voice or a gray suit, but I do know how to match-make a redneck.

  At my redneckharmony.com, you would be eliminated or accepted based on my (sort of) patented “10 Dimensions of Compatibility” which I would call “What Y’all Got in Common.” Rednecks need to feel the love, too, right?

  Here’s a sample of questions.

  Have you ever given birth on a pool table? If so, how many times?

  Have you, or any member of your immediate family, ever tried to remove a tattoo with eighty-grit sandpaper? From the baby?

  Have you ever burned all the hair off your body while demonstrating the power of methane gas?