Articles, Shmarticles. I Read It for the Pictures.

Prepare yourself, gent(i)le reader, for what may be your first exposure to Jewish porn:

What is hotter than Glatt-Kosher Premium Angus Beef, fresh out of the oven, with a bissel kosher wine in soft focus at the edge of the frame?

Welcome to my second-favorite magazine: Hadassah, named not for the wife of everyone's least favorite sell-out Demo senator, but rather for the Jewish women's organization that finances hospitals in Israel by holding fashion shows and mah jongg tournaments in every Hebraic enclave from Brooklyn to Boca.

Because we Jews are all about values that matter. Like tzedekah. And tradition. And ease-of-use.

Who doesn't love homemade gefilte fish and saving fifty cents (maybe even a buck if you go on double-coupon day)? Whenever I long for the sweet meatloaf of fish just like my beloved Bubbe used to make, what greater comfort than ad copy that mimics her broken English:

Yes, the latest issue of Hadassah Magazine reminds me that it's time to start thinking about the Passover Seder, that special holiday meal we look forward to all year . . .

and then try to rush through as quickly as possible.

Now, I realize it's wrong to stereotype an entire group of people, to act as though millions of Jews are all the same, when in fact there is a rich diversity among us, as a casual skim of the magazine's ads reveals.

For example, some Jews prefer this sort of Romantic/ceramic hideous style of Judaica . . .

while other Jews prefer the more lucid hideous of Lucite . . .

Because it may be okay to break tradition, but g-d forbid you should break that glass cube commemorating Sarah and Jonathan's joyous union.

Speaking of break, what if, again g-d forbid, your elderly parent should break a hip? Fear not, as the fine advertisers of Hadassah offer any number of services for outsourcing the guilt, um, I mean the caregiving:

Although if your no-good offspring aren't willing to shlep down to South Florida to care for you themselves, even after all you've done for them, maybe you should take matters into your own hands. Because if they don't seem to care whether you're alive or dead, they certainly won't care once you actually are dead. But don't worry, because for a small fee, I mean generous donation, somebody will:

Yes, this single issue of the magazine seems to offer everything a Jew could ever want. Where else can you shop for discount prescription drugs and support Eretz Yisrael?

You'll be feeling so good and saving so much when you're downing that fabulous cocktail of prune juice and discounted Plavix and Flomax, you may even make it to the Holy Land yourself.

After all, who would mind wandering the desert for forty years, with this handy fold-up scooter, delivered right to your hotel.

Just imagine how excited the Cheez was about all the ads for trips to Israel I was leafing through.

How unfortunate that we already have plans for the week of what promises to be a very memorable See Israel with Hadassah and Song tour. Because the question is not how many times can one tour group sing Hatikvah? The question is in how many different keys--at the same time?

Difficult as it is to choose among the Israel travel packages advertised, the real challenge is choosing among the ads for Jewish-themed retirement homes. They offer golf, tennis, beauty parlors, entertainment, and a reminder that for thousands of years, across every continent, there have always been certain constants of Jewish life:

Namely, Torah, and male pattern baldness.

Of course, if you're going to enjoy your Golden Years, you need the peace of mind that comes from knowing your children and grandchildren are flourishing. And great news, because once again the products available in the ads in this month's mag come through for you:

Your daughter ...

may she marry a Jewish doctor!

Your granddaughter ...

may she be a Jewish doctor (and believe me, the athletics is good for getting into a competitive college, and at least with the swim team there's no chance of a ball hitting her in the face and ruining that brand new nose).

Your son . . .

may that zhlub at least stop chasing the shiksas long enough to read Hadassah Magazine.

You never know, there might be something in there that interests him.

Yes, blond Jewish triplets, born in Hadassah hospital to a Hadassah Magazine writer, now all grown-up and sporting their Israeli Air Force uniforms.

I told you it was Jewish porn.

By "Holiday Show" I Did Not Intend to Mean Groundhog Day

Okay, it has been a while since I posted. Not for lack of thrilling content, I assure you. My life is just as filled with comedy-fodder as ever, I assure you. One thing you can count on is that I am laughable.

It's just that laughable ol' macaronimanic has been having so many adventures, she's been hard pressed for time to blog about them. But in the spirit of no time like the present, no used crying over spilt blogs, no business like show business, etc.. let's get back on the hobby horse, starting with my holiday show, performed at Scratch PDX in December 2009.

Note that the goniff who claimed to be a pro videographer apparently lacked certain skills such as focusing, sound editing, and correctly transcribing my name or the title of the act.

So I'm sorry the video sucks, but the performance rocks. Please book me for your next performing arts festival, office holiday party,* or family simcha.**

*I did actually perform this show at our office holiday party, and they didn't even fire me. I suspect out of fear I'd sue for religious discrimination. Careful when you hire a Jew, we all know a LOT of lawyers.

**Yes, I can play Hava Negila and Sunrise, Sunset on the accordion. If I can just master Kool and the Gang's Celebrate Good Times, Come On I will have mastered the trifecta of bar/bat mitzvah musical entertainment.

Thanksgiving Myself Agita Worrying For No Good Reason

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

So of course I start worrying about it well in advance.

By last Tuesday, when the Cheez and I had actually started on our road trip to San Francisco, where we have spent every Thanksgiving since 1992, I was in full on panic.

Carol is coming this year I pointed out to Cheez, meaning our friend Katie's mother. This is shocking because though she is invited every year, she always declines. Something about not wanting to see her adult offspring in lingerie.

Oh, yes, I guess I should mention that in addition to spending every Thanksgiving since 1992 in San Francisco, we have spent every Thanksgiving since 1995 in lingerie.  

Trust me, it cuts down on the unwanted relatives at the dinner table.

At least it did until this year.  

This is just like when the AAA magazine ran the article on Burning Man I moaned, my complaint shrilling out like an RV tailpipe dragging along the hipster-encrusted desert. It means it's all over.

Then, as we were holed in the Motel 6 in Redding, we realized Cheez had forgotten to pack his Farrah Fawcett wig. How can you have Thanksgiving in your regular hair? I wailed.  You might as well be sitting home with a Tofurkey sandwich. 

But by the next morning, things dawned brighter. Or so it seemed when I discovered that the gas station across the street from the Motel 6 sold souvenir spoons.  $6.99 later, I knew I was really on vacation. 

By Wednesday night, we were firmly ensconced in Little Orphan Annie's flat in the Lower Haight, with all eight of our Tgiving pies baked.

What the hell are we going to do with ourselves tomorrow morning? Little Orphan Annie wondered. 

She panics about Thanksgiving even more than I do. 

I reassured her that we could use the time to pay fitting tribute to the Native Americans to whom we Haole Americans owe our earliest Thanksgiving.  AKA the ones from whom we stole this great land. 

Which we did by riding down to the bison paddock in Golden Gate Park.

Herd of bison in the park.

Herd of bicycles in the park.

Things were definitely looking up. Little Orphan Annie lent the Cheez a replacement wig that not only clashed admirably with his made-by-Victoria's Secret-but-actually-purchased-at-Goodwill holiday outfit . . . 

. . . it also made him bear a striking resemblance to everyone's favorite Greek singing sensation.

Now our only worry was how to get us, eight pies, a guitar, an accordion, a salad, half a case of wine, and enough cheese to stink up the entire state of North Dakota from Little Orphan Annie's flat in the Lower Haight to Katie's house in Bernal Heights.

The trunk of the Prius being suPIESingly roomy, everything seemed on the level as we left the Haight.

But I was INCLINED to believe things might be compromised, or really compropiesed, when we popped the trunk after parking the car up on the Heights.

Or at least, half the car was parked up on the Heights. The other half was rather far down.

We were greeted by our co-hostess with the mostest, who seemed oddly ready to play some Live Action Role Playing game.

Very oddly. 

Ever since the breeders among us have started reproducing, I've been keeping close tabs on the queers to kids ratio for Thanksgiving.  But according to Katie, this year it was going to be a shut out.

I couldn't quite imagine a what a No HoMo Lingerie Thanksgiving might mean.

But of course, I'd forgotten that drag queens and five year-old girls are virtually interchangeable. 

Here is Katie's daughter, unwittingly proving that preK can also be pretty queer.  

Speaking of odd couplings, Thanksgiving is the day when I most realize that in addition to being an interfaith couple and an international couple, the Cheez and I are also an inter-animal print couple.

Of course, as John Lennon so beautifully sang, You may say I'm a leopard going out with a bovine, but I'm not the only one . . .

Okay, maybe his panties are a little more equine than bovine, but it's a holiday, people, don't be so uptight. 

Or rather, up tights.

After all, the holiday is about joy and thankfulness and gathering with your loved ones.

Indeed, this pink-crowned and red boa-ed guest is the exemplum of family values, surrounded as he is by his daughter, son, niece, and two nephews.

I guess I don't know why I was so worried that things were changing.  

After all, Thanksgiving will always be my favorite holiday. My pies will always be delicious. Faux leopard will always be the outfit of choice.  My team will always lose the post-prandial football game.

But we will always have the better team photo.

And Carol did do a great job of keeping her five grandchildren occupied, while we in the middle generation had the Accordion-Christmas Carol-and-Endless Eighties-Singalong that are a long-documented Thanksgiving tradition.

Farrah may be dead, but Nana lives on.  

From the Mouths of Bards. Well, Only One Bard. And Thus One Mouth.

I meant to do a Happy Hallotween post.  

It involved an Erev Halloween voicemail from our favorite tween, in which she shrieks in terror.

Terror because her father walks into the room while she is leaving us a message about how she can't hang out with us on Halloween because she is going on a six hour trick or treat binge with her peers, and tells her in that cruel way parents do that she totally not going trick or treating for six hours.  She is only allowed to go trick or treating for like four hours.  Five max.

Then Halloween actually happened.  And the Walloon of Walgreens and his Wuvely Wife surprised the whole block by dressing up as me and the Cheez.

That Is Not My Beautiful Walloon

So I kind of lost the thread of the Hallotween post.  And apparently of the All Saint's Day, Election Day, and Veteran's Day posts as well.

But now I've got a surefire idea for a post topic.  

Plagiarism.

Only, that's an ugly word.  Let's go with Literary Tribute instead.

That's much nicer.  And appropriate, as I am plagiarizing a literary treasure.

So here, without further ado (i.e., more crap photoshop) are the quotable quotes from the eight-week-minus-that-one-I-was-with-my-Schwinstress-in-San-Francisco poetry workshop I took this fall with Peter Sears.

My Own Personal Sears Catalogue:

We do depend on narrative to some degree, especially here in Oregon.

Read the cummings poem and have a glass of wine.

Hot language beats everything.  Deep meaning--leave that to John Donne.  Or whoever.

We have a right wing in poetry that is kind of formal  But they're just stodgy.  They don't really write.

That's what poets do.  They don't want characters chapters, plot.  Screw it.  They want language.

Where can I get a pink tshirt?

You have a real strength in things.  The thingness of the poem. [said in response to a poem we were critiquing, not, alas, one of mine.  Apparently I'm a little thing-lite when it comes to poesy]

We call that in the business POETICIZING.  Poeticizing, a nasty way of saying what she just said.

There he is throwing up in the john, or having angst, or looking out the window.   Whatever it is.

Are we talking your talk, honey?

Sounds like a Ronald Reagan speech.

All the poems work that way Peter declares.  Dubious, workshop student responds, All?.  Peter considers.  A lot of poems he concedes.

Wallace Stevens wrote a few good poems, you know.  And he did philosophy up and down.

On lyric: That's a place, especially with males, where things strut.

Also, the soul is only one syllable, so I like it much better than spirituality.

By young, I mean under fifty.

On William Stafford:  That's why a lot of people hate his poetry.  They can't figure out how the hell he does it.

Sex, war, and some good meals.  There's a title for your first book.

As you can imagine, it was a deeply edifying experience.  

Maybe because I have so much to learn about writing poetry.

But at least I know where you can get a pink shirt.

Right over at the Walgreens.  Which is just the place to go when you're celebrating having your second ever poem accepted for publication anyplace that isn't your high school literary magazine.  

Memorial Dazed

Memorial Day. A solemn occasion for remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.

Not to mention an excuse to party for three days straight, to kick off the season during which Americans party for three months straight.

Giving your life so that a bunch of yahoos can go powerboating while shitfaced, that truly is the ultimate sacrifice.

Though we did not go powerboating, my squeeze the Cheez and I did enjoy some full throttle fun.

Where? you ask.

Well, here's a hint: the slogan was It's a Family A'Fair.

No, not the Poor Spellers for Incest Association.

The 103rd Annual Multnomah County Fair. No kinky sex in that. Unless of course you count the Rose City Rabbit Fanciers' Double Open Show. 

I'm not sure what exactly "double open" refers to, but I'm sure whatever it was, they were doing it like bunnies.

An organful of mood music for all your rabbit fancying needs

The Fair exhibits were fascinating.

Though not necessarily impressive. Unless you are impressed by how much a giant vegetable can resemble a wiffle-ball bat.

Note how this lovely display of prize-winning roses nicely camouflages a Fair-goer in bright floral polyester top.

Think of it as the Magic Eye Can't Believe You Wore That Out in Public

The fair is held at Oaks Park.  

A name which might conjure up Frederick Law Olmstedfast bucolic delights.  But is actually a semi-seedy amusement park.

Not to say Olmsted didn't have a fluming good time on an E-ticket ride himself from time to time.  

Whilst the Multnomah County Fair is free, the rides at the amusement park, which although permanent exude that aura of rusting hazard usually associated with a weekend carny on the most rundown outskirts of town, are not.

Luckily, as we arrived, a departing park visitor offered me his only-slightly-torn ride bracelet.  In other words:  Free Memorial Day Not Quite Carny Rides!!!!!!   

Just one more indicator that Barack Obama has truly brought socialism to our nation.  

And since we were all in the Spirit of America, our first stop on the midway was the Lewis and Clark Big Adventure.  Which turned out to be animotronic proof that George Santayana was right:  those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be haunted by it.  

Warning:  this cannot accurately be called a "Thrill Ride" inasmuch as it is fairly boring, even after I edited out half the ride.  I think it is most enjoyed by those Oaks Parks attendees who have enjoyed a Portland-style puff on the old peace pipe to celebrate their encounter with the Shoshone.

We wound up our visit with me conning Cheez into going on an actual scary ride.  

Of course, when you are so prone to motion sickness you feel vomity if you try to read a map while you are riding shotgun in the Macaroni and Cheez Mobile (aka, our  '99 Saturn), just about any ride is a scary ride.

Confident that centripetal force would cause Cheez only to puke on his own lap, and not on mine, I dragged him over to one of the park's newest rides, the Spider.  Here is how it is billed on their website:

The Spider  Don't get caught in this Spiders web of fear.  Keep your bug spray with you at all time.  A very serious ride!!  

Clearly, the copywriter had had a little too much of the old peace pipe.  Or maybe not enough.

In any event, we waited a quarter of an hour, got on for the last ride of the night, spent ninety seconds screaming, and about twelve hours waiting for Chuck's nausea to pass.  

We might as well have been drunkenly powerboating, sick as he felt.  

And really, nothing goes with the Red-White-and-Blue Patriotism of a Great American Holiday like a little Green-Around-the-Gills.  

I(pecac) can hardly wait for the 4th of July. 

Yoo Hoo, Jew!

Want to get the attention of a member of my tribe? Try the phrase 40% off.

But much as we love a discount, not just any discounted dreck will do.

So I was reminded as my delight at this sign turned to dismay at the merchandise in question.

Because, despite his Yid-esque name, Fred Meyer was not a Jew. Even nuttier—he was Rosicrucian.

Which perhaps explains why the Hanukkah stock at his store is as nutty as a pareve Tishpishti.

Snuggled beneath the 40% off sign are stocked Hanukkah stamps. Hanukkah stickers. Hanukkah salt and pepper shakers.

Not to mention "Chanukah Spreaders." Which you might think refers to any Ashkenazi set of thighs after eight nights of fried latkes slathered in sour cream.
Actually, it's a set of cheese knives.

Apparently meant to commemorate the blessed and burnished weapons with which the brave Maccabees fended off the armies of the evil Antiochus. Not to mention the occasional rogue wheel of cheddar.

What they do not have at the local Fred Meyer, alas, is Hanukkah candles. AKA, the one damn thing I actually need for Hanukkah.

And so the quest began.

My goytoy the Cheez checked at the Safeway downtown. Where they tried to sell him Yarzheit candles instead.

Apparently all you Jewish wax products look alike.

For those of us who can tell the candles that commemorate when Jews survived from the ones that commemorate when a Jew died, well, substituting Yarzheit candles just doesn't seem kosher.

New Seasons, the locally-owned grocery store filled with upscale enviro-hippie delights, has plenty of Etrogs in stock.

Which is great if you want to get your Sukkot shopping done early.

Sukkot being the Jewish holiday for which Etrogs are needed.

And there being only 282 shopping days until Sukkot.

Clear on the other side of the store, nestled among the seasonal displays, I did find some Hannukah candles.

They were mislabeled, alas.

Because they claim to be "Down to Earth."

But at $24 a pack, um, well, for that much, the Earth in question shouldn't just be a tribute to prime Middle Eastern oil. It should be drenched in a barrelful of it.

Listen up (non-Chosen) people: you are trying to sell to Jews. And while we don't drink the blood of Christian babies, and we're not all hook-nosed . . . well, the part about always looking for a bargain—that's not ugly stereotype.

That is genetic/cultural fact.

I still had a few leftover candles from last year's standard $1 box, so I knew I could make it through the first couple of days. And since my college roommate was coming to visit from Semitically-saturated San Francisco, I figured she could just bring me a box.

What I didn't figure was that said college roommate, being an Irish lapsed-Catholic originally from Boston, would have no idea what to look for in Hannukah candles. And yet would take the assignment incredibly seriously.

So while I had assumed she'd just pop into the Lucky's in her neighborhood, and scoop up the usual Manischewitz 144-pack for a couple shekels, unluckily enough she headed to some shmancy Judaica store in Berkeley.

Where she proceeded to buy one of each kind of Hannukah candles that they had.

Which means I now have five sets of hand-dipped, highly decorated Hanukkah candles.

So I am all set for Jewish observance.

And not just because I've got menorah supplies through the first of Tevet, 5774 (or, as those of you paying retail know it, the end of Hanukkah in 2013).

Also because my roommate has refused to let me repay her for the $50-plus so she blew on not-to-be-blown out high-end Hanukkah meltables.

Yeah, I'm feeling guilty. Which is very observantly Jewish of me.

After all, who needs Hanukkah gelt, when you can have Hanukkah guilt? Guilt being the true currency of my people.

actual Todah Raba gift from the Tru Value Hardware store

The Show Must Go On, Weather or Not There's an Audience

Ah, Macaroni and Cheez take an excited stroll in the Portland snow.

That was last Sunday. When Portland was still excited about the snow.

Now it's about as exciting as . . . the frozen bags of dog poop that are lined up in front of my neighbor's house (apparently he's finding it too cold to walk the 30 feet to his trash can to dispose of said bags).

If I log onto weather.com one more time only to see that same chipper little snow flurry graphic, I think I may have an inclemental breakdown.

Our friend John is one of those weather addict people. He watches the weather channel constantly, and at work he spends all his screwing around on the internet time scouring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website for the latest meteorological tidbits.

Especially pathetic since he lives in west LA, where the weather is always sunny.

I just use weather.com I told him once.

Then you're only getting half the story! he retorted with the indignation only the superior geek can muster.

Well, John, here's the other half of the story: Oregon's own Jane Lubchenko is going to be the new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Talk about your superior geeks, apparently Obama is hiring scientists to run the science departments.

I'm sure Lubchenko will bring that special Oregon sensibility to the weather service. Which means we can kiss snow and John can kiss sun good-bye. It will be a steady national diet of gray and rain, yeee haw.

I guess one might as well obsess about the weather as anything else. Although normally, this is the time of year when I start obsessing about having to do my year's worth of receipt filing so I can get my tax information to the tax preparer. Which then starts me obsessing about whether I am saving enough money for retirement. Which gets me obsessing about how I should be investing my savings.

But not any more.

Because it turns out that I might as well be answering emails from Nigeria as investing with a respected former NASDAQ chair.

Well, at least I haven't spent my adult life making a huge fortune, only to discover it's been stolen by some goniff named Madoff.

What I have been spending my time making is art. Of late, a lovely multimedia performance art piece I'll be delivering tonight and tomorrow night at Performance Works Northwest.

There's music! There's jokes! There's my trademark crap photoshop mash-ups!

Now if only it would stop freaking snowing, so that there's an audience!

Whatever the weather, it's lovely to wake up and find yourself a Willamette Week Pick of the Week. So put on your skis and come see me in all my Jew-mocking-Christmas glory.

Milk and Meat

Spring break of my senior year of college, my friend Alan and I went to San Francisco. We were auditioning the city for the role of Place We'll Move to After Graduation.

I don't know Alan said with some tribulation as we walked about the city streets It makes me uncomfortable to see all these men holding hands in public.

Alan I reminded him you're gay.

Well yes he conceded. But I'm Massachusetts gay.

You'd think my senior year was 1647, and the Massachusetts he meant was the Puritan-run colony governed by John Winthrop.
Still, it was all too much for Alan.

But not for me.

It is never too much for me.

Which is why last week I found myself loading the car with Crisco and heading to the city that, according to politician, activist, and stand up comic Tom Ammiano, is named for St. Francis of the Sissies, whose miracle was turning breakfast into brunch.

For the record, the Crisco was for our Thanksgiving pies.

Which were excellent.

Even if they weren't what everyone who was cruising for a piece on Castro Street was after.

Still, we had a gay old time during our sojourn in the City by the Bay Window.

We saw this man making a rather public show with his rather large organ.


It was at the Castro Theater, where Cheez, our friend Brenda, and I joined 1,404 intrepid souls for the Saturday afternoon showing of Milk.

Intrepid being code for homosexual.

I know there were 1,404 of them there, because I happened to notice the seating capacity sign for the theater, which is 1,407.

It was the gayest sight America has seen since Rock Hudson made pillow talk with Doris Day.

And by that I mean, there were lesbians there, too. I know because the minute the movie ended, the Sapphic Siskel and Ebert seated behind us began complaining This is totally inaccurate. There were a lot more women in the movement.

Cheer up, I wanted to tell them. This movie had one whole dyke in it. Which is more than you can usually say for American cinema. Though maybe not for George W. Bush's cabinet.

In case you were wondering, the movie, though a tear-jerker biopic/typical patriarchal erasure of lesbians from history, is very educational.

For one thing, I learned that Sean Penn can act.

Quite well.

I might have really taken him for a Jewish fag from Woodmere, Long Island.

Just for comparison, the night before, we had dinner at an Italian wine bar with our friend Craig.

Craig is also a Jew from Woodmere, Long Island. But about as straight as can be. Soooo not Milk he broke out the travel pack of LactAid as soon as the waiter set the fennel, bitter greens, and montasio panino on the table.

Immoral of the story: If there is one thing we can learn from Milk, it's that the battle against (lactose) intolerance is never over.

Wet behind the ears. With frosting.

Don't try to pull the leopard throw over my eyes.

I didn't just fall off the macaroni truck.

It's not like I was born yesterday.

I was born the day before yesterday.

That explains all the people who were crowded into my lovely home, Dutchboy, on Saturday, drinking my booze and leaving a thin veneer of mushroom paté over an astonishing range of household surfaces.

It wasn't a surprise party per se (I'm way too much of a control freak to leave a whole party to Cheez). But still, there were a few surprises.

Like Susie Bright being in the closet.

Yes, Susie Sexpert, co-founder of On Our Backs, Ms. Sex-Positive Lesbi-bi-feminist herself, in the closet.

Not as an act of repression. As an act of transgression.

As soon as I said guests were welcome to poke around anywhere except the closets, where I'd crammed all the mess, Susie dove for the closet door like it was the last muff on earth.

Only to come out complaining it was too dark to see anything.

I haven't been to a darkened closet party since those junior high days of 7 Minutes in Heaven.

This party was even cattier than an adolescent kissing game. Thanks to all our leopard decor.

Exhibit A: Susie draped over my leopard dresser.











Exhibit B: Susie rolling around my leopard bed.











Exhibit C: Susie giving who knows what body part a quick rub-a-dub-dub in my leopard tub.

What can I say? You have an exhibitionist at your birthday party, you end up with a lot of exhibits.

Something about the evening brought out the sexpertise in a number of guests.

Take Len Neiberg. Mild-mannered Intel engineer by day. But once upon a time, a guy who used to shlep Patty the Plastic Pelvis around the Harvard Campus.

That was back when we were peer contraceptive counselors. Len was kind enough to present me with a birthday gift of his t-shirt from the group (mine having been lost somewhere in the intervening twelve million years since college), bearing our famous slogan, We're There For You When Things Get Hard.

Those who didn't get the contraceptive message might have turned to some of the other guests, ranging from Judith Arcana, a one-time Jane -- as in, member of the Jane Collective -- to Ariel Gore, the original Hip Mama, who came with her knee baby Maximillian, shown here with lovely my-other-mother-is-also-a-lesbian Maria Perez.


Guests also had talents that extended beyond the boudoir and the making or prevention of babies.

Sarah Dougher sang some songs, including one about Bella Abzug, another about Lady Bird Johson, and this marvelous ditty.


Naomi Bishop made me a leopard cake.
This was the best birthday present since America gave me a black president. Or a half-black president.

My party actually had 500% as many black men as the American presidency will have come January 20. For a grand total of 2.5 black men.

They arrived and departed at different points through the evening, so as not to shock the system of Southeast Portland, which does not see too many brothers.

Though it did see my brother, all the way down from Olympia for the occasion.

I was wearing a sparkly pink-orange-blue dress (shown here right after Mary Dzwkwzzndznczdncxzski [okay, maybe that's not the exact spelling of her last name, but it's about as pronounceable] spilled red wine on me). This was a bittersweet purchase from my favorite vintage store's going-out-of-business sale.

Do you think it was originally a prom dress, or a bridesmaid dress? I wondered to various guests, never having been to a prom nor been a bridesmaid, myself.

Prom! Emily and Cherese declared definitively, explaining no bride would let her bridesmaids outsparkle her.

I guess it makes sense, although personally, I had no worries about being outsparkled that night.
Thanks to everyone for making the birthday and the whole year it topped off so damn fun.