Home Sweet Home!

Pictures forthcoming, but just a quick word to everyone that we made it home safely. It was a very pleasant trip without any incident... Wilbert always makes it so easy to travel... he's so helpful and laid back - a good balance to my hyper-alertness and tendency to get stressed out. Probably one of the best/easiest/most complicated trips we've ever done, what with long transfer times/distances and train travel in addition to air travel. Thanks, honey!

Also thanks to the many people we spent time with! Especially enjoyable to see were Mike & Joel, Key & Perry, Joel & Joanna, Fritz & Lou, Ashley & Stephan, Mel, Heidi, Merrick & Cristian, and Mom & Dad. Also Ellen, Oliver and Glen and friends! Thanks, guys! It was a fun trip thanks to you!

More to come, but first I've got about 5 hours of sleep to catch up on! A belated Merry Christmas to all!

Family Christmas in Boston

This week I finally got to meet my little nephew, born last May. He's a gorgeous little man, fairly even-tempered, and loves to smile at us a lot. Nice to finally meet you, Cristian!

Christmas with the family in Boston has had its usual fireworks, especially with my brother. My father and sister (and later my mother) and I have had some very honest and vulnerable discussions that I think have led to a much better situation for all of us, which I'm grateful for. Unfortunately, that didn't happen with my brother, and he left this afternoon. Too bad.

Tomorrow shopping and a movie before my niece's Christmas play and Christmas Eve dinner. Most of the presents have already been opened due to my brother's strange schedule, so not sure exactly what we're going to do on Christmas Day! On Boxing Day we take the Amtrak train back to New Amsterdam (New York) and on the 27th we fly back to Old Amsterdam. We're looking forward to seeing friends for their pre-New Year's Eve party, though we've yet to figure out what we're doing for New Year's Eve!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Whassup, cuz?

We arrived safely to New York City last night after a four-hour flight delay from Amsterdam. Have a raging head cold. But that's where the drama ends. We have a great hotel at a fair price in NJ with the ferry to Midtown literally outside the front door... cool! Went to the top of the Empire State Building today and saw New York from above with pristine (freezing) weather. Went shopping and both got hooked up with fancy new headphones (I must admit that Wilbert's are fancier than mine!) and bought some new clothes that are two sizes smaller than what I was wearing before surgery! :-) 

Tonight went out to dinner with my New York cousins and their spouses (we missed you, Perry!). They are an extraordinary, talented, generous, fun group of people and we very much enjoyed our time with them. Thanks for your presence and your presents, guys! We hope to see them here next week when we're back from Boston after Christmas on our way home. Hopefully their parents will be here as well... that would be an amazing bonus!

We're in at a decent hour, just had some hot tea at the bar, and are ready for bed. I may stay in tomorrow to "uitzieken" (ride out my head cold) while Wilbert hits fabric and knitting stores. Wish me luck!

Scott Kalwishky & Joel Larson

Was talking to some old college buddies this weekend and a name came up of a guy I hadn't thought about for a while: Scott Kalwishky (left and the leftmost guy in the picture to the right). We were never friends, but I knew everyone in Iowa City in the early 90's because I was the doorman at the gay club there for three years. And I saw him every weekend. He was younger than I was (I was in grad school) and we ran in different circles, but I was still curious to find out what happened to him. Then I found out he had died. Not sure of what - doesn't really matter at all - but did some good reminiscing with Joel and Tim about him and was sad to see him having left us. Joel especially had very positive memories about how Scott made him laugh a lot. 

At the same time I was looking for info about Scott, I came across information about another acquaintance, but this time from Des Moines, Joel Larson. I vaguely remember when this happened, but I never knew all the details. He was essentially murdered in Minneapolis (while cruising Loring Park) by someone who was deeply conflicted about their own sexuality. The murderer is now an out gay man in prison, having killed TWO gay guys, including a former state congressman, and wounding another. This murder occurred pre-Matthew Shepard, when the straight world still looked at a gay man getting killed while cruising as a bit of a freak show. He deserved better.

As I talked about with Tim and Joel, it's stuff like that that puts pressure on the rest of us to live our dreams and to live life to the fullest. 

California Episcopals Split from Anglican Communion

See CNN Story

I was furious when I read this. I am a very practical Christian and have very little tolerance for academic Christians who sit around trying to nitpick ever little last piece of Scripture to find out all the little rules that can make them as exclusive and as different as possible from the rest of humanity, which is what they are doing. It's an absolute CRIME AGAINST GOD to be doing that at a time when there is so much suffering and war in the world. They should keep themselves busy with solving that. I hope they lose all their property to the Episcopal Church.

I found their website and wrote them. You can too at van@sjoaquin.net and jgladstone@gladstonepr.com. 

Good riddance, fundamentalist cretins. The Anglican Communion doesn't need sex-obsessed, misogynistic troglodytes within its ranks.

You go down to South America and contemplate the finer points of scripture; with their stellar tradition of democracy and respect for human rights it sounds like it's right where you belong. The rest of us real Christians will continue to feed the poor, heal the sick, console the downtrodden and remember that "The greatest of these is LOVE." I wish those among your diocese who still remember this strength and hope in their search for a new church home.

I speak now out of anger - a language you probably understand with your petty, vengeful schoolmarm of a God. But under that is a deep sorrow for how horribly you've lost your way. And how sad I am that there is no place for people like us in your view of the Universe - when all we are doing is loving one another.

IHS.

Christopher & Wilbert
Married in the Christian Church 23 June this year