Getting on the same page

I called mom earlier this week to see if she wanted to have dinner on Mother's Day.

"Oh, hon," she said, "it's not worth it. You can't get in anywhere, it's so expensive, and the food's not all that great."

At least she won't have to worry about restaurateurs knocking down her door to promote Mother's Day meals.

In most families, a statement by your mom to this effect would be construed as passive-aggressive: What mom's really saying is that you and your brothers had better have already made reservations at a nice restaurant that's not too loud. And a gift would be nice.

But we're not most families.

This was supported by the fact that my middle brother was spending Mother's Day taking his son to the airport to go to Disney World. My youngest brother didn't even return my calls. My mother's sister was celebrating both Mother's Day and her birthday today, and her daughter was having a big brunch at 2:00. My mother was planning to go. There was no way my mother was going to want to have dinner.

I was about to call my mother to wish her a happy Mother's Day, but she beat me to the punch.

After giving her my best wishes, she proceeded to get to the point of her call.

"Honey, I'm having a hard time printing out a Web page on Paul Harvey. The first page prints, but then I can't get the rest of it to print."

I knew then I should have booked a reservation for dinner.

"Ma," I said, already realizing that patience was not going to be my Hallmark gift this year, "tell me what you're trying to do."

"Well, I typed in 'Paul Harvey commentator' and got the page," she said, as if there was only one, "and his wife just died and I'm trying to print it but only the first goddamned page comes out. I must have printed it 15 times yesterday. I wasted so much paper."

"OK, Ma," I said, taking a deep breath, "now tell me what page you're on."

"The one where you type 'Paul Harvey commentator' and it comes up. I want to send it to Ronnie."

I know now why tech support people are hated; it's because they have to listen to things like this all day and after a while they simply can't contain their contempt. My mother has been using a computer for 15 years, and she still acts like conspiracy theorists and hamsters are running it. There's always some implied Communist plot to thwart her efforts to use the computer correctly. So I always have to put on my Encyclopedia Brown hat and try to figure out what's going on in that brain.

Now, before I continue, I tried to ignore that mom was printing out some right-wing drivel to send to her right-wing monk boyfriend in California. But that's a whole other story. We'll save that story for some pagan holiday.

"Ma," I said, "go to the top of the page and tell me what the name of the Web site is."

"It says WGN."

"Beautiful," I said, as I searched Google results. At least now we could be on the same page. "Why do you want to print this out?" I asked, looking at the scary picture of Paul Harvey, who looks like a cross between Dick Clark and Howdy Doody.

"His wife died last week and I want to print it out and send it to Ron."

I shook my head, wondering why, in this day and age, anyone would have to print out an article and send it by snail mail to anyone else in the United States. Then I remembered that mom's "boyfriend" lives in a cloistered abbey, where apparently he does not get news about the real world. Except that he does interact with lay people and can freely move about when he wants to, including going to newsstands. I remember once my mother asked me to scour the earth to find a book for Ron that was banned by the Church in the 1950s. The book was called "Satan."

Back to the task at hand. On the Web page was the waxy figure of Paul Harvey, and at the bottom was the obituary of his wife Lynne. It was all so sweet: Paul and "Angel," as he called his wife, had been married for 68 years, which is almost as long as my mother's been alive. Mom had an awful marriage to my father that lasted 41 years, and her one true love was a cloistered monk. So I think of her romantic idealism with some bemusement. But now my main goal was to get her damn story to print.

"OK, Ma, go down to the end of the page and look for the beginning of the story on Lynne Harvey."

"OK, got it."

"Now, to the right of that, do you see a little icon--uh, picture that looks like a printer." She said yes. "Click on that little printer."

She clicked on the printer. "OK, now it says, Close Window."

When you click on the printer icon, a separate window with the full story opens and immediately scrolls to the end of the story, where a Close Window button appears.

"Yes, you're right, it does say that," I said, "but click in that window and go to the top....You see the picture of Paul and Lynne?" I said, as if we were old friends. "They're holding a sign up?"

"Yes, yes, I see it."

"Now go to File Print."

"Where?" Ay ay ay.

"Where you usually go to print documents," I said, hoping she'd understand that.

A few minutes later, I heard the printer clicking away.

"Oh!" mom said, "it came out!" Praise Jesus. "I've never seen that printer thing before. I would have been here till kingdom come trying to print that out. Thanks a million, hon, you're a genius."

I would have preferred "saint," but "genius" will do.

"Oh, yeah, about dinner. I think we'll do it another time," she said. "It's gonna be so crowded and we'll have to wait for a table." I was going to explain that not all restaurants in my neighborhood would be crowded, but I've learned from experience that when mom says she doesn't want to go out, that's what she means. As corny as it sounds, getting her document to print was probably the best gift I could have given her today.

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Top it off

After chowing down a dozen dubious wings at the airport bar (Luis: "I think this one is made of cat"), we were whisked away to the Upper Class cabin, where the other half really lives.

I looked around to make sure Karen Black wasn't on board. That would have been ominous. Luis was in seat 1K. Where was I? Why, 2K! Right behind the pilot and the lavatory.

The attendants wasted no time in offering us drinks. We both had champagne. "I also took the liberty of putting a bottle of water next to you," the attendant said. Well done.

Clare, the chef, came around to each of us to ask whether we would like to be served breakfast in bed 90 minutes before landing. Why, I couldn't possibly...well, all right then.

Another attendant asked us if we would like to have massages or beauty treatments. I said I would prefer to sleep. Before takeoff yet another attendant came by: "May I make your bed up?" Why, yes you may!

I took something called No-Jet-Lag, a homeopathic remedy consisting of Arnica Montana (the evil twin of Hannah Montana) and several other witches' brew ingredients. I took one every 2 hours, according to the directions. The label warned that consumption of alcohol may impair its effectiveness. Yeah, whatever.

I actually fell asleep for about an hour and a half but was awakened by Wizard-of-Oz-house-pitching turbulence. Luis said later that he thought we were going to die, but at least he'd die happy. I almost never get queasy in turbulence, but this was prolonged, and the alcohol didn't help.

Breakfast was served on schedule, and we landed safely, about 90 minutes later than planned. UK immigration is divided into "Fast Track" (i.e., rich people), "European Union," and "Rest of the World," which is pretty much how the real world divides. Luis went through Fast Track, whilst I used my newly minted Irish passport to speed through the EU line. No stamp, but that's OK.

We took the Tube into Islington, about an hour's ride. It's amusing to hear a calm British female at every stop say, "This is a Piccadilly line train headed in the direction of COCKfosters." I never get tired of that.

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Singled out

At work today we had a cake-and-coffee gathering to celebrate the upcoming marriage of a colleague. As part of the toast, our department head asked each of the married men in the room to offer some words of advice to the imminent groom. It was a well-meaning gesture, and I got the jokiness about the differences between husbands and wives, but it made me uncomfortable nevertheless. For the record, I'm completely out at work and fairly secure when it come to my orientation. Most people have met Luis, and no one has an issue with me. When it came my turn, I considered saying something witty, like, "Well, if things don't work out, you can always turn to men," or "My wife always says that...oh wait, I don't have a wife..." But as I was mulling over what to say, I was passed right over and another married guy piped up with his take on marriage. I'm not trying to be mean about this, but most of the guys, including the department head, are minorities, and I think I finally understood what it's like to feel invisible. Luis and I may not be married, but that's because we can't...at least in New York. For God's sake, even friggin' Uruguay just passed a civil partnership law.

And as I read later on CNN that gays have once again been excluded from the federal hate crimes bill, I felt more than ever that this country still has a long way to go. I understand that the bill was attached to a larger defense bill that the Democrats couldn't support, but I'm not optimistic about having equal treatment financially or otherwise in this country. It's ironic that the hate crimes bill is named for Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was beaten to death in Laramie, Wyoming less than 10 years ago. Society as a whole has come a long, long way since I came out 25 years ago, and except for the time I narrowly avoided being gay bashed in DC, I have seldom felt discriminated against or threatened. I'm still reminded of my status every time I have to check "single" as marital status on a form, pay extra to have Luis on my health insurance, or experience awkward moments like today's gathering. We can use partner, significant other, and boyfriend to define ourselves, but they don't quite have the same import as the word "spouse."

I don't mean to victimize myself by any means. I'm a happy, healthy, well-adjusted homo. But I wondered if my department head, himself a minority, realized who his audience truly was and if he could have been a little more empathic as someone who may also sometimes feel invisible. He ended the toast by saying that marriage was a great club to belong to. Again, a nice gesture, but for some of us, that club is not open to join.

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