Eve of my 100th post!

This is post number 99 for bigislandrachel. Please, try to contain yourself, the hospitals in New York are already dealing with heat stroke victims and won't be able to handle an influx of casualties if my readers started a celebratory riot in my honor.

Okay, maybe just a leetle riot. Sticks only. No stones. None of that fancy shit.

Much has happened since my recent run of gay pride posts, but I'd like to add just one footnote: Hawaii's governor, whom I'd pretty sure is living in the glass closet herself, just vetoed Hawaii's civil unions bill. It was passed in the state House and Senate, but not with enough votes for a veto override, so, yet again, Hawaii's LGBT community is robbed of their civil rights. No parade can make up for a lack of political power.

But on a happier note, I just spent the 4th of July weekend in Montpelier, Vermont, one of the few states which allows gay marriage. Hurray! The BF's mother (BFM) picked us up in front of Lincoln Center and we drove from New York City aaaallll the way up to Montpelier. It took two days to drive there and one really long day to drive back. This was our mascot, a present from me to the BFM. Yes, that's a dashboard hula man. If you're wickedly jealous, which I know you are, you can pick one up at the Aloha Stadium Flea Market in Hawaii. If you're not in Hawaii, you'll just have to wait for the gods to drop one of these beauties into your lap. That's how I found this one.

Vermont: the BF and I stayed across the street from Aunt Vermont, the BFM's little sister, and her husband, Uncle Vermont. Their house is from the 1850s and our bed and breakfast was from 1895. See if you can guess which is which.

If either of your answers was "the 1/20th scale replica of the Vermont Capitol Building getting towed into the 4th of July Parade," congratulations, you win the bottle of beer I put in the freezer for a quick chill and then forgot about. Careful of the glass shards.

We toured the actual capitol building while we were up there, because the BF and I know how to party like it's 1805. There were a lot of cool features, like the marble floor tiles with seashell fossils and the cannon from the Revolutionary War that I almost got my arm stuck in, but my favorite part of this particular historic monument was the statue of Ethan Allen just outside the capitol doors. Apologies for the up-nostril shot, but seriously, how ultrafabulous is Ethan Allen in this pose?
Mostly it was just nice to get out of the city. You don't realize what a cesspit New York is until you get up into the mountains and see the clouds like puffy white sheep and the rolling hills like sleeping giants, and then you realize that none of your paper cuts have festered from the subway germs and not once have you smelled urine on a street corner, and you're strolling braless down the middle of a street without fear of being hit by a yellow cab and see Space Invaders grafitti and you have to ask yourself: why do I live in New York again?

Especially when you come back from your trip and find waiting for you, in no particular order: a letter from the state unemployment office saying that you haven't worked in the last year and aren't eligible for benefits, your 2009 tax return be damned; an email from your main employer saying that your beloved rep, who always took care of you and got you good long gigs, is leaving the company and will be replaced by someone, at some undetermined time; and the beginnings of an epic struggle with your secondary employer, who hasn't paid you in six weeks.

We should have stayed in the miniature capitol building.

On the next post: Edith Wharton!