You know, I was hopeful.  LaShawn Barber wrote a piece declaring (I thought) that fathers abandoning their children is a form of abuse.  As the child of a single mother with a father who ran out, there was a constant, lingering doubt about my own self-worth that always played around the edges of my psyche, every so often wondering what was wrong with me that he left. 

I should have known that would get blown out the fucking window.

As a 25-year-old, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing wrong was that he was and is an asshole.  It is, however, a hell of a way to grow up, in no small part because there’s always the assumption on the behalf of others that something had to have been wrong with your mother, that something’s got to be wrong with you.  True to form, this is exactly where Barber goes.

Despite what selfish and shameless adults think, children want fathers. They need fathers. They need masculine men in their lives who love them and would do anything to protect them, men who live with them, raise them, and sacrifice for them. Millions of children grow up without being loved or care for by the men who sired them. It makes me angry, bitterly so.

Oddly enough, most fatherless children aren’t the result of selfish and shameless adults, they’re the product of selfish and shameless fathers.  Hence the “fatherless” aspect of the argument.  Children of absentee fathers are not broken, simply hurt.  We are not deficient, we are not flawed, and we manage to become perfectly functional, rational adults - we’ve even about to have a president to our advantage.

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July 1, 2004

Eleven o’clock in the morning at the

Apricot Cat and Black Dog Bed & Breakfast

in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Who knew that we would see the day when our marriage would be recognized in the United States? Our marriage is recognized in a few states (and as a civil union or domestic partnership in others), but we’re second class citizens here in NC. Here at home we still have no hate crimes or employment protections (never mind benefits); there isn’t even an anti-bullying law that protects LGBT students yet (more on a critical vote today here). As Kate and I take time to celebrate our union, we also celebrate all the recent marriages in California; may the voters in that state turn away the disgusting amendment that will be on the ballot in November and preserve marriage equality in the Golden State. Good luck as well to Arizona and Florida advocates of our right to marry—may those voters turn away the hate amendments at the polls as well.

Marriage equality continues to thrive in small pockets in our country, and one of the best ways we can cultivate support and effect change is to bring those marriages back home where these commitments are not legally recognized. Not to challenge the legal wrong, mind you (it’s going to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the end), but to become visible married couples in our communities - living marriage out of the closet before our friends, neighbors, and work colleagues.

Visibility challenges assumptions; show willingness to explain to potential allies how your legal-somewhere-else marriage is denied where you live.

The fact is we will prove by example that our relationships will not cause an end to anyone else’s marriage or destroy society, and it will move all of us closer to full civil equality. Here’s our blast-from-the-past photo album.

Quick mid-day note: the PandaMom is now PandaMom, M.B.A. 

Congratulations, Mom!

Because I have a camera and a dog:

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I just told some kids to stop playing outside of my window. 

I’m going to go watch Ninja Warrior now and pretend that I’m not an adult.

I’ll be finishing up moving out of my old apartment today, but I did want to leave you with my new favorite road trip game.  It’s called Phil Collins Ruined Genesis: The Game.

The rules:

You must be taking a trip by car longer of at least 90 minutes or longer.  You must listen to the radio the entire time. 

You must start scanning stations from the beginning of your trip.  If you find a song you’d like to listen to, you may at most listen through to the end of that song and the end of the next song, should you so desire.  After that, you must resume scanning.  If the song is followed by a commercial break, you must resume scanning.  If you hear a talk program you’d like to listen to, you may listen until either a topic change or a commercial break.

The game:

In order to free yourself from the scanning, you must (and most likely will) find a Genesis song some time during your travel.  If you hear one, you must immediately stop and listen through to the end of said song, and the end of the next one, because you just happened on a quality radio station.  After that, you’re freed of your Genesis-defined confines. 

Yeah, I hate road trips.

Almost every major gas station you go to these days allows you to pay at the pump with a credit or debit card, and includes a keypad that allows you to input a PIN, choose a receipt, ask for a car wash, etc.  These pads obviously include numerical keys as well.

So why the fuck can’t I pay with my bank card and use that keypad to say I only want $20.00 of gas? 

So, I’m considering purchasing Metal Gear Solid 4 today as my summer game (I generally try to buy one game every three months or so, and with law school starting, this is probably going to be my last game for a while).

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Although I liked this article’s focus on fairness as the main reason for burnout, I wish this hadn’t been in there:

Burnout has been long associated with being overworked and underpaid, but psychologists Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter found that these were not the crucial factors. The single biggest difference between employees who suffered burnout and those who did not was the whether they thought that they were being treated unfairly or fairly.

It’s not that being overworked and underpaid aren’t crucial factors in burnout - it’s just that they’re the most common and definable manifestations of the fairness gap. 

The worst job I ever had was with the administrative side of a union’s pension fund.  It wasn’t the job itself - it was that I came in the same day the daughter of one of the administrators came in, and we were both starting in what was supposed to be the same position.  Our first task was certificates for years of service to be given out at the yearly meeting.  Each certificate required printing, stamping a seal and putting the seal on.  The way the work was doled out was as follows:

Daughter of the administrator: Make sure the paper doesn’t run out, and grab the certificates from the printer tray. 

Me: Hand stamp each of the seals and put them on each of the certificates, then put them each in a folder matching the certificate’s recipient, then put the package in a sealable mylar bag.

At the end of the day, me exhausted from hand stamping a couple thousand seals and her decidedly not, we got word of our assignments for the next day.  I’d be working on “dead mail” - calling the survivors of members who’d recently died and making sure all the contact information was up to date for the administration of remaining funds and benefits.  She’d be working with the head administrator on a Powerpoint presentation.

Suffice to say, I quit at the end of the day.

What was your worst job, and why?

Augustienne (to me): ...so, tomorrow let’s go pick up the car from my dad’s house after we take the dog to get her nails clipped and go grocery shopping, so I can take the car to go get that thing for Augustlet’s school and you two can just go straight home…

Augustlet (in perfect chorus with Augustienne): ...or whatever.

Me: Hahahahaha.

Augustienne: That’s going to be an Augustlet Chronicle, isn’t it?