Andrew Q. Gordon's Blog, page 75

My Coffee Pot Broke – and other tales from the struggle called life.

So Sunday morning, I woke, looking forward to the start of a glorious day of shopping, shopping, more shopping and cooking.  I kinda hate to shop, but morning coffee can do wonders to put me in a good mood.  So I cleaned the tank, measured the water, scooped out the coffee, turned it on and went to take care of my baby daddy duty. [Stop snickering I said duty, not doodie.] When I came down to get my supposedly made coffee I got nothing. Nada. Not a drop.  Ever want to scream, but couldn’t because you have a sleeping baby?  The rule in our house is, “you wake her, you bought her.” Making matters worse, the machine, a Cuisinart DCC 3000 is only seven months old.  It was a replacement from the manufacturer for another one that was only a year old.  Very annoying.  Fortunately the Starbucks is only a ten minute walk.  Oh well – good thing Christmas is coming. I see a new coffee machine from Santa on my list.

Now if it was just the coffee pot, it wouldn’t be so bad, but in the last month we had to get a new car, a new kitchen faucet and get the washer fixed.  I’m sure some of you are thinking  - had to get  new car – right.  Well we did – so there.  The Subaru needed $3000 worth of ‘routine engine work’ to keep it going. It was eight years old with 112,000 miles. That $3K was to replace the engine gaskets – which we were told because of the engine design, required the engine be removed to replace them. The blue book, sell it yourself, price was about $3800.  Seemed like a bad deal for us – pay $3k so we could maybe get $3800. Option 2 was – trade it in and get a new car. When they offered us $4800 on a trade in, that made the choice a lot easier. But still, it required we get a new car and take on new car payments.  The new car smell only goes so far to make you forget the monthly payments.

After several posts on this blog about marriage equality in Maryland, it must seem odd that I didn’t say anything after the referendum passed.  There were/are good reasons.  We wanted to tell our family first that Mike and I are getting married.  Of course like any other couple who’ve been together 18 years, we can’t agree on anything. When, where, who’s invited, how many, catering or no catering, etc. Hell, we can’t even agree on the rings. I want plain and simple, he wants the turbo 3000 super deluxe.  Sigh.  It’ll work out – it has to or our attorney will come over with a shotgun and demand I make an honest man of him.  She’s been rather adamant that with a baby, we need to get married for estate planning reasons and we need to do it now! But it’s official, after 18 years together, and a lifetime of being ‘single,’ I’m engaged.  Fortunately neither of us wanted an engagement ring because, frankly, after a surrogate and raising a baby, I’m too broke to afford anything more than a faux cubic zirconium ring.

One point I need to make is about our families. They are, to be quite blunt, amazing. Supportive, happy for us, excited the law passed, all the above. Not that they weren’t supportive before, but this was just another example of how wonderful they are. Between Mike, the baby and them, I’m about the richest man in the world – of course had I won the lottery I could have said I was the richest man in the world, but fortune was only so generous.

Finally, speaking of the baby – I realize I’m totally biased and can’t be counted on for an honest opinion, but I think Mike and I have a really cute kid.  Take a look and let you decide.

Book updates.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since I last posted. Much has happened, mostly all good too.

Chosen Of Honorus has a tentative release date of February, 2013.  I’m just starting the editing process with Dreamspinner Press and their art department is working on a cover. I’m excited and interested to see what they come up with.  More details when they become available.

In other news, Dreamspinner Press informed me this week they are buying my third novel – Purpose, with a release date of May or June 2013. Purpose is perhaps my favorite story of all my writing – though I suspect each ‘new’ story will be my ‘new’ favorite. This is very different from anything else I’ve written. It’s darker, more introspective, less angsty, more gritty.  It’s set in contemporary Washington, D.C.  Like most of my writing, there is very little sex, but I think that’s what worked for the story.  I asked a few people who review m/m fiction on Goodreads for feedback before I submitted it, and based on the positive comments, I sent it to the publisher. They, along with everyone else who helped me, will get a shout out in the acknowledgement section.

With three books in a year, I’m about tapped out. I’ll be glad to get one a year out after this, with two being a banner year. Not much help for it while the baby is still young. I wouldn’t trade my time with her for anything, not even a new novel.

Next post will be more of a personal update, so stay tuned.

Reviews this week: Sunday, October 14 - Saturday, October 20, 2012

Reblogged from rainbowbookreviews:

These weekly posts are meant to give you a different way of accessing reviews. Especially for everyone who is busy during the week and can’t always spend lots of time surfing the Internet. And let’s face it: who isn’t busy?

So, in chronological order from old to new, here are the books we reviewed, with a link to the review post on the web site.

Read more… 188 more words

Rainbow Book reviews did a review of (Un)Masked. Scroll down to find the link.

I Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Lives With Another Selfless Request For Support:

In less than three weeks the people of Maryland are going to vote on my civil rights. For anyone reading from another country, yes this happens all the time in the United States – seems like every year some religious group manages to put on the ballot a referendum question asking the citizens of one state or another to vote to limit the civil rights of gays and lesbians. For a country that touts the separation of church and state, it is astounding how much of our civil rights are control by religion.

But in 2012, the Maryland legislators voted to pass civil equality on the issue of marriage.  Contrary to the scare tactics of the religious right and the republican party, Maryland’s marriage equality does not adversely affect any religious community. Yet their ads on TV continue to try to scare folks into believing their religious freedom is at stake.

But Proposition 6 is only about marriage equality for Gay and Lesbian couples.  So if you live in Maryland – vote YES for Proposition 6.  If you have friends and family in Maryland whose ears you can bend, get them to vote YES for Proposition 6.

Several developments – I won’t call them good news – because until the vote is in, it isn’t final, but these are helpful and certainly not bad news either.

First – the Marriage Equality folks are out raising and therefore out spending the anti-marriage equality folks. While this is certainly good news, as this article points out, it’s hardly a ticket to success.  17 of 26 times in votes on Gay rights and specifically ‘Gay Marriage’, the Marriage Equality folk  have out raised and out spent those opposing equal civil rights and all 17 times they lost. So more money doesn’t guarantee success.

Second – polling in Maine, Maryland and Washington are in our favor.  In Maryland and Washington, the legislator passed the law and the law is now up for a citizen vote.  Washington state is looking more hopeful, but Maryland has good news too.  Maine the vote is whether or not to restore equal civil rights that was taken away 4 years ago.  But good polls don’t necessarily mean success. The polls were better than the vote many times and the votes have always gone against us*. But I’m hopeful this time they’re more accurate. We’ll see.

*In 2006 Arizona voted down an anti gay marriage bill, but it passed in 2008 so technically it has always gone against us/

Now a piece of good news.  A second U.S. Court of Appeals Ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional. The 2nd Circuit ruled today that DOMA can’t deny federal benefits to gay and lesbian couples who are married in states that allow gay marriage. I bet that if the Supreme Court upholds these decisions, the conservatives might end up committing mass suicide given how impossible it seems for there to be a federal amendment on the issue.

Hopefully things are as good as they seem.

Updates and Ramblings

It’s been a bit since my lost post – having a baby turn one can tie up your time like no one’s business.  And it’s been even longer since an update on what’s next writing wise.  So here we go -

First a few more shameless plugs:

My co-author on (Un)Masked – Anyta Sunday – just self published her latest book – The F Word. This is the fourth installment of her ‘Friends To Enemies’ series.  Personally I think she is fantastically talented and her books always deliver, so it’s worth every bit of the $2.99 it costs.

Alicia Nordwell just had her first book - Pricolici - published.  It’s a fantasy/paranormal story, but Cia’s take on things is always a bit different from the norm.  I think you’ll like it, and at $2.99, it’s a steal.

K.C. Grim – another friend, just had his second book published.  Mr. Anonymous. K.C.’s writing tends toward the more erotic and this did earn the highest degree of ‘heat’ from his publisher – [their rating says -  Adult themes including explicit, detailed sexual interactions and intercourse] but if that’s you’re thing, I think you’ll enjoy this.  And if you buy it from the publisher’s – link provided – it’s on sale right now, so hustle over.

 

Whew so that’s enough unsolicited plugs for friends.  On to me and mine.

Purpose was moved from free content on Gay Authors to their restricted, subscription membership required, premium content section. I did this because I’m planning to publish it. I’ll submit it to Dreamspinner first to see if they are interested.  If not I’ll either try elsewhere or self publish it.  Either way, I expect it will be out by spring.

Archangel is progressing nicely – well nicely from my perspective. I’m about 12K into it. Those who’ve read the short story won’t recognize a whole lot. The story needed a bit more heft to make the leap from short story to novel. The premise will remain the same, but the story will change and the cast of characters will also be altered quite a bit.

I’m going to do something different – well several things different – in this story. First there will be two perspective – first time I’ve ever done a story from more than one perspective. The other thing that will break from the mold, is that one of the main characters will be straight.  Shocker I know, but ‘those’ people exist and are underrepresented in M/M fiction.

I don’t have an eta on Archangel, writing is whenever I can and I haven’t started the editing with Dreamspinner on Chosen yet so that is bound to take away writing time. But I have the bug so it’s going to get done.

That’s all, don’t forget to check out the books by Anyta, Alicia and K.C.

 

Marriage Equality Maryland – Part II

Sunday I said this would be a two part post, but didn’t quite get to it last night.  What started this was an article in the Washington Post Editorial section I read on Sunday.

Why I Oppose Gay Marriage.

The author claims to be a gay man, but is also a co-founder of the local Tea Party chapter. Among other things, he says he was for gay marriage before, but after reading up on the topic he found he could not defend his position and is opposed to it now.  He concludes by saying he is all for equal rights for same sex couples, but wants them to be called something different.

The crux of the author’s argument is – the word Marriage has been used to mean a man and a woman for thousands of years so we shouldn’t muscle our way into it. Part of me agrees with this logic.  Marriage is one of the seven sacraments in the catholic church, so I can see how they church might not want their sacrament used for some thing they are opposed to.  Not that I agree with the church’s archaic position on gay rights, just stating a fact.  The problem with this argument is that marriage is not just a religious event anymore. People get married who are not religious, who are pagans, who are sinners and unable to get married according to the church, etc.  Marriage is no longer something only defined by religion.  You can get married in a civil ceremony and have zero contact with religion.

The idea that words don’t evolve to encompass greater diversity is ridiculous.  For example, voters once meant just white males. Additionally, marriage once included polygamy.  Abraham had how many wives? So for the author to suggest that marriage has only meant a man and a woman is false.  For centuries it also meant a man and women.

When the author said that after reading he found he could no longer defend his position, I have to wonder what he read?  The kool-aid package left over from on of his tea party rally?   I ask this because I used to agree that same sex unions didn’t need to be called marriage until I did some research, really  did some research.  Once I read up on things, I came to the opposite conclusion; same sex marriage is the only viable option.

For starters, there are something like 1000 federal rights that apply only to married people, civil unions or unions of a different name don’t count. In Maryland, there are 400+ laws on the books that deal with Marriage. Calling same sex marriage something else would require the legislator to amend all those laws to include whatever they called same sex unions.  For a small government, fiscally prudent man, the author doesn’t seem to care that using the same name for the same rights would save the state a lot of money.  According to the author it is better to spend more tax dollars changing all the laws than to use the word marriage, even though the end result would would be the same.

Another thing that he could have read, but almost certainly missed, is that no state, not even those that have gay marriage or civil unions, recognizes the civil unions of other states.  There are no provisions to accept a civil union from California as the same as a marriage in any state.  If the author had really done real research on the issue, I don’t see how that fact would sway him to oppose gay marriage. His logic [and I'm being generous in using that word to describe his thoughts] goes like this: Rather than use the word Marriage to define same sex unions, let’s call it something else in Maryland, pay to amend all the statutes that use just the word marriage to include this new creation, and deny Marylander’s who use this new creation the same benefits as married persons if they move or travel somewhere else. Which really means, he is not really in favor of equal rights.

The fact that the author is siding with the people who oppose gay marriage shows how desperate he is to be accepted by people who will never accept him.  The social conservatives/tea party supporters/right wing republicans have not and will not support even civil unions.  For proof, look to North Carolina.  Same Sex Marriage was not permitted, but the conservatives decided that wasn’t enough. So they passed a law to prevent any form of civil rights to same sex couples.  That way, the author’s grand idea of a separate but equal classification for same sex unions could never happen in North Carolina.  His suggestion that if the legislator in Maryland had tried for civil unions first, there would be no referendum, no outrage by the conservatives, has absolutely no support in fact. The facts speak otherwise.  Virginia passed an anti gay amendment to their constitution to ensure same sex couples couldn’t get a right that “mimicked a marriage benefit.”

Last – and for all my family members and friends who read this and are religious, I suggest you close the window now – there is no religious justification for denying same sex marriages – none!  The simple and uncontroverted fact is that people who vote in a civil election to deny civil rights based on their religious belief are hypocrites.  Why it is okay to impose their narrow definition of marriage on everyone else?  Not all christians denominations oppose gay marriage.  Some permit gay marriage. What this has become is the imposition of the limited beliefs of some faiths on everyone else.   How come it’s not okay to force the catholic church to do something they don’t agree with for religious reasons – provide insurance that includes free contraception, but they think it’s okay to tell the Quakers they can’t marry same sex couple when their faith says it’s acceptable?

Hypocrisy, that how.  Those who vote to deny civil rights under the law to everyone else based on their religious beliefs are hypocrites. No one is saying they have to agree with, accept, perform, condone, or support same sex unions within their church. They are free to follow their tenants as they see fit. But they do not and should not have the right to foist their beliefs on others anymore than others have the right to tell them what to believe.

The United States is not a Theocracy, contrary to what so many christians believe. It is a democracy where all faiths are free to practice. No one faith, or denomination [or group of denominations] has the right to impose their beliefs on anyone else.  If the majority of faiths can impose their will on others, then it’s just a matter of time before they will find themselves on the short end of a debate and find their own rights limited. Be careful what you wish for, because once you head down that slippery slope, you can’t stop sliding and eventually it will come back to haunt you.

Gay Marriage In Maryland – Part One

This is going to be a two part post. Today, in Part One, a more positive post.  Tomorrow’s will deal with an editorial in the Washington Post by someone who made – in my opinion – some ridiculous arguments. But today will be non-confrontational.

Today there was a fund raiser for Equality Maryland – the lobbying group trying to get the referendum on the gay marriage bill to pass.  Originally it was supposed to be a screening of a movie with some comments by the State Attorney General, Doug Gansler.  Attorney General Gansler was one the first high profile elected official to support same sex marriage in Maryland. His office took the position that Maryland HAD to recognize same sex marriages from other states under the state constitution.  That position was recently upheld by the courts in Maryland. By the time we arrived, the Governor, the Lt. Governor and the Congressman from that district all agreed to speak.  The event raised a fair bit of money, though probably not enough given how much money is being spent by opponents.

One thing that struck me, we were the only couple to bring their child. Granted, ‘lil q is not quite a year and we didn’t want to get, nor did we have handy, a sitter, but we figured other parents would bring their children.  We had more than a few people come up to see ‘lil q.

While the speeches were going on, I took ‘lil q to the back to keep her from interrupting the speakers. Standing back there I met a member of Governor O’Malley’s cabinet, a very nice man who talked to me about his granddaugher who is about ‘lil q’s age. I also met a very nice woman who was very taken with ‘lil q.  She took our picture to put on her Facebook accounts as ‘the face of Marriage Equality in Maryland.’  Turns out this nice woman is State Delegate Aruna Miller. ‘lil q and I had our picture taken so it may end up on her page.  Check it out and leave Delegate Miller a note telling her thanks for her support.

The event was arranged by the Mayor of Kennsington Peter Fosselman and his partner Daune Rollins among others. We were invited because we’re friends with Pete and Duane.  Duane arranged for us to get our picture taken with Governor O’Malley.  I believe Gov. O’Malley might have plans to run for President in 2016.  If he ever becomes President, ‘lil Q will have her picture taken with him.  If not, it’s still pretty cool to have her picture taken with the Governor of Maryland who signed the bill into law that will – hopefully – let her daddies get married.  Thank you, Governor O’Malley for all your support!

Mike, ‘lil q, me and Governor O’Malley

One Person Can Make A Difference For Gay Rights.

What prompted this post is a story about Chick-fil-A possibly ending it’s support of anti-gay marriage groups.  According to this story, Chick-fil-A has agreed to stop funding anti-gay—which means anti-gay marriage as well since those are mostly one and the same—at least that is what Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno, who has been fighting the construction of a Chick-fil-A in Chicago, said today.

I hope he’s correct, the company didn’t formally agree with the Alderman’s announcement, but I’d say that after 10 months of fighting Chick-fil-A and all the success he’s had, he must feel pretty confident he won for him to now support the construction of the store.

Not that it matters, but I don’t think Alderman Moreno is gay. That he has taken this stand is all the more remarkable given he’s a newly elected official.  Stands like his, that welcome the adversity that come with them, deserve to be acknowledged.  For what little it’s worth – Thank you Joe Moreno!

In a similar story, what about Brendon Ayanbadejo?  He’s a straight pro-football player for the Baltimore Ravens who public spoke out in favor of gay marriage in Maryland. This article in the NY Times talks about where his life views came from.  For this man to do this to help people like my partner and I who don’t have the ‘bully pulpit’ that comes with celebrity status is astounding. If you read the articles you’ll see where he took a lot of crap, had people call him gay, ask him in the locker room when he’d be coming out as a gay, it would have been so easy for him to cave in and shut up, but he kept at it, even chiding President Obama for not supporting gay marriage.  Thank you Brendon Ayanbadejo!

One person can make a difference.

Writing With A Baby

In two very different areas of my life—writing and having a child—I got a late start. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a writer and even though I knew I was gay, I always thought I’d be a dad some day. Both dreams took decades to become a reality, each for different reasons.

I started writing in college. My school allowed for independent study programs, but it require a bit of leg work. The student had to come up with the program, find an adviser, convince them you were serious and that your project had merit if you wanted credit for your dream class.  I managed to do this for a creative writing class.  I passed, got an “A” and then focused on law school.  I still have many of the ‘original’ stories, each on a yellow legal pads or in black and white note books. But as time and my career became more intense, writing took a back seat.  It was only after Mike and I were together a good number of years that he encouraged me to write.  Guess he knew more about me than I did.

Having a child proved a bit more labor intensive than writing.  For writing all I needed was a good laptop and I was set.  Sadly, having a child required much, much more.  One of the first considerations, perhaps the first, is what method to use.  Adoption can be fairly inexpensive if you go the foster care adoption route. But we wanted a baby—which left two realistic paths; third-party adoptions or surrogacy.  I won’t go into the pros and cons of each, but the short story is that surrogacy had a more definitive time-table, you didn’t need to wait for someone to pick you to adopt their child and there was no thirty day grace period where the birth mom could change her mind and take her child back.  For us surrogacy was the way to go.  The next biggest hurdle was money—surrogacy is, in word, expensive.

The last piece of the puzzle—before the surrogate and the other issues involved in the actual process—was location. Where would we live. At the time we started to get serious about a child, we lived in Virginia, the state that soon after we moved there, passed an anti-gay amendment and didn’t allow second party adoptions for same-sex couples.   Fixing that problem required a move to DC or Maryland.  So we sold the house in VA, found a new house, moved in, fixed it up and kept saving.

Fast forward to today, we have a daughter who is biologically one of ours.  For those who’ve followed me through the surrogacy process and her first year, I’ve referred to my daughter on-line as ‘lil q to protect her privacy.  [Q being the nickname I got on Gay Authors.]  Here’s a ‘lil q update.

‘lil q will be a year old in ten days.  Her arrival has certainly changed our lives in so many ways, most of them we expected.  But I’ll confess, I expected I’d have had more time to write than I find I have lately. Part of that is underestimating how tired an infant/toddler can make me. The other is just sheer stupidity on my part.  Why I thought I could just settle in and write after she went to sleep is beyond me.  As if all the things I used to do that I have to put off while she’s awake were going to magically get done.  Like I said, stupid me.

But, I’m starting to find a bit more balance and a bit more time to write now that she is in daycare.  The trade-off is, I don’t see her as much.  It’s only been eight days, so I’m not sure if it will feel normal at some point. But for now, I miss seeing her here on my days off. Even with the nanny taking care of her, I still had more time with her when I was off work.

Two days into daycare, she got a cold. Three days later, she had two ear infections. That caused us to miss our first swim class since we started in June.  The remarkable thing is she didn’t miss a beat.  I only suspected she had an ear infection because she started rubbing her ears. Clearly life is too good for her to be slowed down by an ear infection or two.

Daycare started with her being less than happy when we left.  Now? It’s almost like – “Okay daddy, you can go now, I’m going to go play with the other kids or the toys here.  See you when you come get me at 5 pm.” But at least she’s always happy to see us when we come get her.

Adjusting to life with her in daycare means I have to make better use of my time to see more of her. So this Sunday, when she stirred, I got her up, dressed her for the day knowing grandma was coming, and they we went out for a walk. One of the great things of living near a major university is walkability. We got in the stroller and off we went for daddy to get his coffee and then a stop at the deli for breakfast. ‘lil q generally is a good eater who will eat regular food.  After eggs, yogurt and fruit [which the staff at Jason's Deli were very accommodating to make for me even though it wasn't on the menu], daughter and daddy set off for the farmer’s market.  One thing I’ve learned is ‘lil q loves her walks in the stroller. She is a curiously little thing who loves to look around.

When we got home we found out Grandma was feeling ill, so no visit.  Daddy/Daughter day continued with the mundane task of grocery shopping – which I had planned to do while grandma watched the baby.  This is how the afternoon ended.  My little angel.  

Things I Learned . . . .

When little kids get sick, they produce an infinite amount snot.

I should not drive when I have my daughter in the car because I still have a potty mouth.

A potty mouth is very hard to stop cold-turkey.

Most people who drive are stupid – but I’m not ‘most people.’

What looks like a little bit of pink medicine for a baby can leave a huge stain when spit out.

It is never a good idea to take the first half of the day off on Friday.

Migraines ruin even the most beautiful of days.

Political reality is some bizarre dimension where only the candidates and their ‘surrogates’ live, but they seem to be allowed unlimited free passage to our world.

Sports teams are never the same in real life as they are ‘on paper.’

Being nice to people DOES pay you back over time.

And when a baby/child smiles at you, things never seem quite so bad as they did a moment ago.