by Fay Jacobs
We’re all suckers, sucked in by this marvelous technology and then at the complete mercy of tech support crews who are now more valuable to us than doctors or plumbers.
When I ran my first search and destroy mission and found all those intruders I realized that the proverbial once was not enough. Five minutes after cleaning my computer off, the damn things were back again, popping up in my face with their sleazy, sneaky messages.
Aha! Following search and destroy, I had to immunize. That’s right, I had to run part two of the program and inject my computer with anti-spyware serum. The program had to immunize my computer against all known bugs, viruses, Trojans, and everything but Whooping Cough.
Of course, part of my weekly routine will now include updating my spy software for new bugs and running my weekly search and destroy missions. Ugh, and I had vague hopes that my life was getting simpler.
The good news is that there seem to be dozens of programs available to combat this twenty first century problem (some solutions for free, some, of course, for hefty fees).
Just so you know, spyware can also be called adware or malware. This malicious programming consists of files that allow the people who think them up to snoop on your browsing activity, see what you purchase and send you “pop-up” ads they think you will love. They are sadly mistaken if they think that everybody who surfs the CAMP Rehoboth site (or Matt Drudge, or CNN.com) wants their member enhanced. Or needs Cialis. Or wants a new mortgage. Okay, here’s the thing. I just realized that I hate pop-up ads worse than I hate Cicadas.
I’d rather be bombarded by flying beady-eyed shrimp-bugs (which I was, on Charles Street in Baltimore, in my Mustang Convertible, in 1987, but I didn’t get to tell you all about it because of malware!!!) than bombarded by virulent and disgusting pop-up ads on my own home computer.
And the government wants us to use completely computerized voting for the November election? I’m even more opposed to that idea than I was yesterday, before a brood of spyware infested my computer. I’d rather walk ankle deep in dead Cicadas (which I did in 1970 in Bethesda, Maryland…) than have to worry that malware and spyware will invade and hijack our critically important upcoming national election.
I say bring back paper ballots and number two pencils. I say we should all demand paper back-up and whatever other measures are necessary to make sure that computer hackers, netspys, software terrorists or virtual Cicada swarms don’t make technological idiots out of us all.
Spyware. It’s a brand new fear factor. Trust computers? I’d rather eat a Cicada.
June 2004
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
GOT INK?
“Is that a henna?” I was asked last night at a party.
“Um. No.”
“It’s real? You got a tattoo? No you didn’t, it’s a henna.”
“No, it’s a real tattoo.”
“You didn’t. It’s henna.”
“I did. It’s not.”
“I can’t believe it. You’re having a mid-life crisis. Tell me the truth, did it hurt?”
“You betcha!!!!”
I must have been in some kind of altered state as a result of the hoopla surrounding this book business, otherwise this never would have happened.
On Memorial Day Weekend, under threatening skies (although I wasn’t personally being threatened, which makes this whole thing extra weird), I went to the Ancient Art Tattoo Studio on Route One and got tattooed. I’ve got a rainbow-colored seahorse etched into my ankle. Bonnie got one too. Now we don’t have to invite people home to see our etchings, they travel with us.
So, in 21st century vernacular, I’ve had my body modified. I would have thought that the first modification I’d ever try would be liposuction, but instead of shedding something I’ve actually had something applied.
And I love it. Now. The morning after the modification fest my spouse and I looked at each other, looked at our ankles, and said, “Holy _____. Do you believe this?”
But of course, buyer’s remorse is moot. No three-day rescission clause on this baby. It’s a keeper.
And I’m still trying to piece together the events that led to my foray into body art. Me, who pales at dental anesthetic and freaks when the pups get kennel cough boosters. How did this happen?
It started with our son the actor Eric, whose corporate career in diversity work once took him to a classroom discussion of Native American dream interpretation. One of his recent dreams had featured a giant turtle and he and the instructor decided that his good luck totem would, forever more, be a turtle.
What followed was pretty natural. Eric installed turtle lawn art at his Capital Hill townhouse, decorated the coffee table with gift turtles from friends and relatives, and pretty much had a cool little collection going.
Until Memorial Day weekend when he started to, as Emeril Lagasse says, notch it up a little. Bam! He wanted a big old turtle tattoo.
“Okay, lesbian moms, are you going to get tattoos, too?”
Oddly enough, this was not a question out of the blue. Over the past few years, we’ve flirted with the idea. Much like we’ve flirted with Cadillac Escalade ownership or the cutie cashier at the hardware store. But it didn’t mean we planned on actually taking either of them home with us.
We’d often thought about getting a little seahorse stenciled on a shoulder blade or other circumspect site. Why this design? According to Bonnie, all of Baltimore’s old-time lesbian bars (and there were surprisingly many) had a seahorse symbol by the door. The seahorse represented a species where boy seahorses birth and nurture babies, while mommy seahorses play softball or something. The symbol has completely fallen off contemporary gaydar, but it’s still a cute tattoo image.
Fast forward to Route One, May 29, Ancient Art Tattoo. Now, if any son of mine is going under the needle, the operatory better be sparkling clean and sanitized. Peggi Hurley, an award-winning tattoo artist and a woman who knows a thing or two about body art runs a clean as a whistle shop and takes her craft seriously. In fact, she worked with the state government and the health department on tattoo parlor regulations. So it was Peggi we went to see.
The place was packed. While Eric searched through patterns for his turtle of choice, Bonnie and I flipped through pages and pages of massively inappropriate and ugly, if not frightening, selections. Vipers, Harleys, naked ladies, barbed wire. I think not.
One young girl eyed a sweet little puppy template for her rump. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that it was destined to become a Shar-Pei. Likewise, the chippy who wanted Snoopy on her ultra flat stomach—when this young woman is nine months pregnant Snoopy could quite possibly explode. At any rate, he’d have jowls by 2034.
And these gals were giving us advice. I’ll admit, it was disconcerting hearing body art counsel from sweet young tattoo candidates with pierced eyebrows, tongues and goodness knows what else. One Valley Girl could have strained linguini through her ears. When I couldn’t quite understand what one girl was saying I realized she was trying to orate with a brand new tongue stud. I think she told uth getting a tattoo doethn’t hurt. Hell, it already hurt feeling like Grandma Moseses.
Finally, we located a viable seahorse design. Incredibly, we didn’t go screaming out the door.
Okay, we’d had the advice, next came the consent. Naturally, Eric knew he had to go first if there was any chance we’d follow. For forty-five minutes he sat in that chair, smiling and chatting as Peggi engraved a Native American turtle totem on his upper arm.
When it was my turn, I showed Peggi the seahorse I wanted and told her I was wavering between shoulder blade, lower back or the flight or fight response. She was so nice and reassuring, and so quick to suggest that I’d really rather have a tattoo where I could show it off, I immediately agreed to the ankle site.
Well. Only after she started buzzing me with the black ink outline did I realize just how good an actor our boy Eric really is. Getting tattooed hurt like hell. Although, I was somewhat distracted by Bonnie,
who had turned ghostly pale and seemed to be panicking. At that moment I realized she had banked on my chickening out and she’d be spared. “Fooled her!” I thought, although that was little consolation. Fortunately my seahorse tattoo was just a 15-minute job, and pretty soon I was out of the chair and pain-free, watching Bonnie cave to peer pressure and get her very own seahorse appliqué.
Truthfully, the whole thing was pretty shocking. I hadn’t felt like this much of an outlaw since 1970 when I accidentally wandered into a campus Vietnam War protest and got tear gassed. Even then, all I had to do was be hosed down. Jeesh. Now I’m seahorsed for life.
“Okay,” said Peggy, as our trio stood stupefied, staring at our body art, “go home and wash with mild soap and water, keep it clean and have fun.”
Our seahorses hurt like mild sunburn for a week and then they were fine. We are both delighted with our pathetic little middle-aged rebellion. If this is a mid-life crisis, we can only hope that the nursing home folks will be admiring Peggi’s handiwork when I’m 112.
Of course, as we drove to New York to visit my parents last week, I wondered if I was the only AARP member in history worried about telling an octogenarian dad about a tattoo.
Got ink?
July 2004
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
GAMBLING FOR LOVE AND MONEY
My partner Bonnie did a brave, tough, loving thing last week. She played the slots with her mother. Okay, you have to know the history to understand the depth of this gesture. My mother-in-law is an unrepentant gambling addict.
For the better part of Bonnie’s 50-something years and the entirety of our 22 year relationship, we’ve been yanking Mom out of various casinos and bingo parlors—often just a step ahead of the mortgage man.
Now it’s tough enough for gay people to deal with family baggage related to our sexual orientation, but add addiction to the mix and you have bona fide American Tourister.
For my part, I couldn’t understand what was so bad about bingo. It’s a game we played in school. What????
Then Bonnie took me to the bingo hall. No church basement this. Lights flashed, bells went off and a herd of Winston-puffing gamblers sat glued to their cards, some playing 48 games simultaneously. I was so inept I couldn’t even manage one game card efficiently. Mom, and the 85-year old woman to my left could dab their total of 96 cards with the permanent marker digit dabber and then swoop in to mark mine before I realized my number had been called. I couldn’t even get out of their way in time to avoid having my forearms dabbed like a Jackson Pollack canvas.
Permanently marked in bright colors, I watched the bingo-mania give way to the next phase of the evening: the unfortunately named ripoffs. These are instant games where you rip off five tabs to see if you’ve won. The bingo mavens rushed the ripoff counter, pitched large bills at the clerk and commenced ripping numbers like crazed pigeons pecking seed. Winners traded winning tickets for more ripoffs, losers shed the debris on the floor. By night’s end, nobody had any money as we waded knee deep in cardboard toward the exits. I was beginning to understand the problem.
Next we heard that Mom went on a Bingo Bus—a five-day tour from Maryland to South Carolina and back, stopping for a chance at big jackpots at all the hot bingo mills en route. All I can say is that by the time bingo Mom and the other gaming nuts got back, they’d gambled non-stop for days, sitting on the bus or in bingo parlors with their ankles swelling like soccer balls. For five days, nobody wanted to miss a G-18 to go potty. Yuck.
But it was the time we opened our credit card bill to find it speckled with charges from Glen Burnie Bingo World that the poop hit the propeller. After a text-book intervention, the requisite crying and teeth gnashing, followed by the eventual acceptance of consequences, we all wound up at Gamblers Anonymous.
Bonnie and I joined the GamAnon family sessions. Personally, I think the gamblers were all in a room trading tip sheets while we entertained ourselves with sob stories of the pissed and penniless.
Actually, I think Bonnie and I were the entertainment, since the group couldn’t figure out how we were all related. “Oh, you are so lucky to have a best friend accompany you here…” I’m pretty sure we were the only lesbians they’d ever encountered, and I’m positive I was their first Jew.
Be that as it may, life continued with Mom on the wagon occasionally and back on the bingo bus more often than not. But, as they say, life is what happens when you have other plans. Five years ago Mom was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The disease is as cruel and as powerful as addiction. Combine the two and you have a woman who has trouble walking, talking and swallowing but who can con her equally elderly neighbor into taking her to play bingo three nights a week.
Necessity forced Mom to move to an assisted living facility and when she could no longer gamble, things got really ugly. One night Mom mounted her mobility scooter, crashed through the nursing home doors and headed for that neighborly getaway car waiting to take the fugitive to the bingo hall. She was apprehended in the parking lot. You gotta laugh. I think.
Now I know many gay people who have had to take care of aging parents who had often made their children’s lives hell because of sexual orientation issues. But in the end, whether the parents came to terms with their gay children, or were merely senile enough not to remember the family schisms, lots of relationships were pasted back together before, or just as, it was too late.
In Bonnie’s case, her Mom was failing fast, refusing to be fed through her tube, resisting anything to help herself, and generally giving up.
Bonnie showed up at the nursing home and said to Mom, “If you don’t eat, how will you have strength to go to the Slots at Charlestown?” The patient lit up, furiously punched the bell for the nurse to get her dressed and off they went.
While Mom could hardly move or sit up in her wheelchair, she knew which slot machines she wanted and which were unacceptable. Finally, at the very perfect machine, twenty bucks in quarters got swallowed before Mom started to tire. Then, the old lady strained to push the button on the one armed bandit one last time and bang! She hit for a sizeable jackpot.
“I never thought I’d do this again,” Mom scribbled on her note pad, her only means of communication. “Love U.”
Acceptance, forgiveness, amnesty. It works both ways. We should all be so lucky.
June 2004
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
EDITORIAL PAGES
Just in case Letters from CAMP Rehoboth was thinking of conducting a readership survey, I’m here to say they shouldn’t bother. Letters has a huge readership. I know this because following my column about my getting my ankle tattooed, I had hundreds of people, many of them complete strangers, come up to me, asking me to prove that I actually got the tattoo.
This resulted in my having to stand on one foot while lifting the tattooed ankle high enough for people to see my seahorse body art. I fell over a lot. If we happened to have the conversation by a fire hydrant I looked like a urinating Schnauzer. It was not my most graceful week, but I can certify to a vast readership.
And speaking of vast readership, the good news is that I was recently asked to pen a column for the national GLBT magazine The Advocate.
Time out here: readers, do you know the meaning of the acronym GLBT? A straight friend of mine thought it was a sandwich, “I’ll have a GLBT on pumpernickel toast, please.” Actually, GLBT stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, the diversity of our “gay” community.
So the good GLBT news was that I was asked to write a national column. This was also the bad news, since I was asked to come up with ideas for a suitable topic in three days. No pressure.
The magazine was trying out new writers for a possible rotating spot writing the back page essay. Think Andrew Sullivan, Michaelangelo Signorelli. Urvashi Vaid. Serious writers. Very humbling.
While the editors had read excerpts from my book and decided they liked “my voice,” they gave me the impressio
n that my usual skewed look at life, liberty and the pursuit of column fodder was a little too cavalier for their gay news publication. They wanted something more weighty and erudite. Kinda like that play I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.
I toyed with writing about scientist Steven Hawking’s shocking admission that he miscalculated black holes and they don’t swallow matter into the great abyss after all, but I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
I tinkered with the latest findings of the food police, who just announced that certain vegetables, like broccoli and spinach may help older women keep their brains sharper. I began expounding on the theory but couldn’t concentrate. Somebody find me an asparagus spear.
Taking a cue from all the writing coaches I ever had, I decided to pitch them stories about two things I am comfortable covering: the gay marriage debate and the upcoming elections. Before I could get the first sentence down on paper I got an e-mail from the editor requesting story ideas on anything but gay marriage and Kerry-Edwards. Kill me now.
Stymied, I knew my traditional methods of vetting column ideas wouldn’t work. Stories arising from everyday disasters at home (“Lawnmower falls from pick-up truck”) were too mundane, ideas from weird internet stories (“Nude man covered with nacho cheese arrested.”) were too silly, and great, big, ponderous social issues were really out of my league.
After two hours of staring at my computer screen and coming up with not so much as a paragraph I gave up. Hell, it was only a chance to write for a national publication. No big deal. Auuugggghhhh!!!!!!
I turned on the TV. There, before my eyes was a commentator discussing gay rights legislation, along with film of two menopausal middle-aged lesbians feeding each other wedding cake. “Gee,” I said to Bonnie, “remember when the only pictures of gay people on TV were parading drag queens and dour dykes on bikes? Things have really changed.”
Bing.
So I proceeded to write a column pointing out the incredible change in the televised image of gay people over the past decade. I had a grand time, noting that once there were only disco bunnies and bull dykes on the screen no matter what the topic.