a is for apple, b is for blind

so, to recap: first black president, gay marriage in political shambles, and we are currently ensconced at sweetwater's in ann arbor during the nasco conference. this morning i was (for me) exceptionally brave and took a bus i'd never taken before into beautiful (and by that i mean leafy and wealthy) downtown and bought $50 worth of winter gear at a store called bivouac, which i had forgotten is one of my favorite words in this messy language of ours. it is cold in michigan, son. the girls behind the counter laughed when i said that but wished me a pleasant stay in their state.

i am drinking tea with honey in the bottom of the cup. this seems entirely fine.

we were also allowed to meet and greet and drink soy hot chocolate with two entirely charming children and their mother maria that my SFL (haters gonna hate) knows. the four-year-old rewarded my attention with a vibrantly scribbled page torn from her coloring book, which i have every intention of putting on the fridge.

so, whither my civil rights? i guess there are people raising hell already, some via lawsuits and some via standing around shouting in public. i'll be honest, voters of california: my feelings are a little hurt here. i hope matt makes a goddammit! video. he's got the footage. you hear me, boy? at the present time our plan is to sit tight and maybe get married in vancouver in december. happy holidays, we're doing it again! it's unclear whether someone is going to manage to nullify all the marriages that took place during that brief beautiful window, but i have my fears. all eighteen thousand of us do. my question is: how exactly are they gonna go about that? i have this vision where the fed breaks into our apartment SWAT-team style and snatches it off the bathroom wall, a la their repossession of elian gonzalez circa 2000. (yeah, remember him? homeboy's a communist now.) probably what would really happen is someone sitting in front of a big computer somewhere would delete the marriages from their records with three clicks of a mouse.

at the present time it looks like i got the last laugh, though. the day before the right to get hitched was pulled out from under us i spent two hours at social security changing my last name, which is now shine. i'm waiting for my new useless piece of blue cardstock to arrive in the mail, after which i will totter on over to the DMV. it might turn out to be a holy pain in the ass to do this changeover but at the moment it appears to be my last recourse. dear conservatives of the state of california, i thumb my nose at you.