Not For Rent To Any God Or Government

Yesterday, Dad sent me a common sense joke that caused an uproar here in la biblioteca.

A guy walks into a Glasgow library and says to the prim librarian, "Excuse me Miss, day ye hiv ony books on suicide?"

To which she stops doing her tasks, looks at him over the top of her glasses, and says, "Fuck off, ye'll no bring it back!"

You see all kinds of things in libraries - and I mean it: all kinds. One time, I prevented a kid who'd gone off his scrip, painted himself Tempra red and cuffed himself to a briefcase from terrorizing equally unstable undergrads. Another time, my students found other students pretending to hear the call of Barry White behind the music room. And then there was the month I realized someone was crawling around inside the drop ceiling over the ladies' room. To this day, I still examine ceiling tiles for, you know, faces in unexpected contexts. Though my particular outpost was especially punk rock, everyone's got stories. A patron walked up to one of my co-workers and punched him in the face. We all thought this was very funny after, um, the charges were dropped. Still, it's the everyday crap that gets a person and the only response is direct action. This happened right before finals.

Future Gum-Chewing Receptionist: My professor left material here for us to read.
Tata: Go to those notebooks. Look up your professor's name. Write down what you want on the forms and -
FGCR: I don't know his name.
Tata: What's the class?
FGCR: I don't remember.
Tata: What's the subject?
FGCR: I don't know.
Tata: Do you...talk about money? TV? The French and Indian War?
FGCR: I'm not sure.

I picked a slim volume out of the economics section and handed it to her.

Tata: Your professor left The Communist Manifesto. It's a quick read and you'll be out of here before your hairspray moistens.

Sure, it was a dirty trick but who else was going to broaden her horizons with a jackhammer? Likewise, we have arrived at a fork in the road, where one path is sunny and oh, look at the poppies and aren't the butterflies beautiful? while the other path is the same dark highway to nowhere. The mile marker:

STOP THIS BILL! Mistake-riddled, LGBTI-phobic civil unions bill is moving forward!

Late Monday, after legislators and reporters left Trenton, Senate President Dick Codey introduced a discriminatory civil unions bill that's an abject horror for the LGBTI community. The bill not only fails to provide us marriage equality, it's also extremely weak for a civil unions bill as far as civil unions bills go.

Whereas the Vermont Civil Unions law at least calls gay couples "spouses," Codey's bill, now the one legislators want to pass, stays away from the term "spouse" and instead invents a new, ridiculous contraption of a phrase called "civil union partner." That's a cold, clinical, cynical term that doesn't acknowledge the love and commitment that same-sex couples share. It's also not a step up from "domestic partner" as the New Jersey Supreme Court intended. Now how constitutional is THAT?

I consider myself a pretty bright gal. My opinion of Me as a relatively smart human has been independently confirmed by testing services and annoyed administrators. And yet, I am completely, absolutely, 100% flummoxed where this seemingly simple state of - pardon me - affairs is concerned. I mean, what gives? What on earth is so terrifying about two people of whatever gender, color or ethnic extraction falling in googly-eyed love, picking jewelry and china patterns, and visiting each other in the hospital? As expectant grandparents, Dick and Lynne Cheney are about to demonstrate to the vile base, the answer is - wait for it! - nothing! - And some people are rewarded for their love with adorable babies whose toes will be tiny and heart-stoppingly cute. In Mr. Cheney's case, all that human affection might be more boo-scary! than auditors grabbing that second set of Halliburton's books.

The simple truth is love is love is love. Every human being wants to love and be loved without fear. There's just nothing complicated about it, if you let yourself see how equal rights for everyone means you, too, whoever you may be.