I like men AND Melissa Etheridge

It started out innocently enough: my sister and her daughter and I were playing cards the other night. Somehow ... somehow ... we got on the subject of human sexuality, and how, in my opinion (not saying whether it's right or wrong or if it's an informed one, this opinion of mine ~) ... I just happened to say that I believe somewhat that some people, generally women, might, under certain circumstances, choose to be gay. As in, Well, I was married to a man for twenty-eight years, but then I decided, one day, that I was tired of shaving my legs and putting up with him wanting to put his thing there, and, well, he also is just on my nerves over every damned thing and I just decided it'd be nice to try living with a woman. A woman will talk to me and watch the Ellen show with me and hug me when I'm feeling bloated and bitchy. So, I said, yes, I can definitely see how a formerly heterosexual woman might want to check out the lesbian lifestyle.

Again, this is my opinion. OPINION. Suffice to say that I am wrong. Truly, I am frequently wrong about things. And. Because I am a heterosexual woman who continues to appreciate her heterosexual lifestyle, it is true that I know nothing about lesbianism. I very likely am completely talking out of my ass right now.
"Are you trying to come out?" my sister asked me. She was noshing on a ham and cheese sandwich but got the words out rather clearly. "'Cause if you're trying to come out, I will support you."
"Me? Well ... maybe I am," I said, arching an eyebrow. For some unknown reason, I acted a wee bit like I might, in fact, be attempting to come out. (Even though I wasn't. Am not. )
It was then my 25-year-old niece piped in: "Ohhhhhhhhh, Aunt Kathleen!" she said, her eyes wider. She was, literally, bouncing up and down in her chair. "It all makes sense now!"
"Yes, yes it does," my sister, her mother, agreed. "Which explains why you went to that Melissa Etheridge concert with a woman and got so caught up in the lesbianism all around that you and she actually held hands just so you'd fit in."
(It is true that I did do that, but with a hetero friend who is married to a man.)
"And you like Elton John, too!" said my niece, with continued great enthusiasm. "Aaaaand you're progressive ... remember that Christmas when I thought I was pregnant and instead of being shocked you were all, like, 'Kiersten, you have a lot of choices available to you, okay?'"
"And you went to that writers place up in New Hampshire with a bunch of liberals, remember that?" my sister asked. "I kinda thought you connected with lesbians there."
"Birkenstocks!" shouted my niece. "You also wear Birkenstocks!"
***
And we all laughed and then I felt ashamed of the conversation because in my heart of hearts I do not believe that being homosexual is a choice. Shame on me for pretending to prefer the strap-on penis when what I really want, and have always wanted, is the penis attached to the man who is going to watch football twelve hours in a row and tell me to drink more water whenever the bloat sets in. Shame on me for finding entertainment value in pretending to be gay for ten minutes, or for reveling in stereotypes that do no one any good.
Like I said, I am wrong a lot.

Really, Philip Seymour Hoffman?

Oh, good God, here we go again: another celebrity drug-induced death.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Is it because they're so rich and famous that snorting coke or heroin or shooting up, or whatever the drug lingo is (I don't know; I've never even smoked weed), that being high is the only
way to go higher in life?
I gotta tell you: I am effing pissed off at Philip Seymour Hoffman. Utterly disappointed.
Forty-six too old for him? Had he had enough living?
Look, PSH: You had a pretty damned good life, by all accounts, by how we Americans measure success. An Oscar, a respected acting career (you were the actor's actor, man), money in the bank (bet it's been a long while since you had to pay an overdraft bank fee ~), a freaking glorious apartment in New York City.

Top of the game, Philip, and you decided to roll up your shirtsleeves on Groundhog Day and pump poison into your veins. You selfish, stupid idiot.

Were you not aware that there are other human beings, right now, this very minute (the kind who live month-to-month financially and are anonymous in the world) who are battling cancer and kidney failure and COPD and sickle cell anemia and name Some Other Horrible Disease and they, THEY, are wanting nothing other on this second day of February than to live to see the next second day of February.

I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't get it: the unfairness, the inequity. How some people love life and want only to live and have lives that are cut short through no fault of their own, and then how there are some people who molest children and/or are drug dealers/or steal money from the elderly and/or plant bombs in big cities during marathons and those people live to be freaking 92 years old .

Where is the justice?

Go Daddy kissing ad shocks me for a different reason

If you were one of the bazillion people who tuned in yesterday to watch Super Bowl XLVII, you probably saw the Go Daddy ad featuring NASCAR darling Danica Patrick, a Victoria's Secret model named Bar Refaeli, and a character actor, Jesse Heiman, who is supposed to represent nerdy unattractiveness. Refaeli's blonde and lithe and cheekbone-sculpted;  he's overweight, ruddy-complexioned, bespectacled, and frizzy-haired. She looks like a WASP-y angel; he looks like a Jew who's eaten too many latkes.
Here's my chief gripe. We're supposed to be grossed out by a beautiful person kissing a not-so-beautiful person.
It's that idea that I find offensive, not the sucking-smooching sounds that people on talk radio are complaining about today.
What? Ugly people aren't supposed to kiss? And ~ oh my goodness! ~ call the police! Call television stations! Call Talk Radio! THERE'S AN UGLY PERSON KISSING A PRETTY PERSON!! Say it isn't so!
Please.
Is anyone else beyond tired concerning the superficiality of pretty vs. ugly?
C'mon, America. You have a lot more to be worried and upset about.