A 5th of July cookout, original factory settings, coffee@Caribou, and Devil Pup pansies…

~Monday~  I was up at about 9:30 this morning, and after a bagel and some coffee for breakfast, I cut up a seedless watermelon to take to Joe’s this afternoon. After that, and before Robert arrived, I ran to the Food Lion to get hot dog buns and potato salad, but actually got macaroni salad, too, as both it and the potato salad were on sale.

Robert arrived at a little after 1:00, and we arrived at Joe’s at about 1:30, where we had Pringles as an “appeteaser” while Joe cooked the burgers and dogs on the grill. It was all good, and we enjoyed a red (Robert), a white (John), and a blue (Joe) cupcake respectively with watermelon chunks as chasers.

Back at my house, I uploaded two Tina Turner CDs to my iTunes. It told me an iPod OS update was available, so I elected to do it, which took much longer than I wanted it to, and in the process also “reset my iPod configuration to the original factory settings,” which I didn’t ask it to do.

Robert headed back to Durberville, and I headed to my bed to talk to nappy. I woke up before my alarm, which I’d set for 8:00, and it was right after I dreamed about two-stepping with Joe Judge. We did this sexy two-step where I had my face resting just above his chest near his right shoulder and was biting his shirt. A lady came up to us when we were done, and she said to me, “I liked your look while you were dancing,” waving her arms around in the air to intimate “the whole thing.” LOL. Silly dreams.

When I turned my phone back on after waking up, I had a text from Joe that he was at the Caribou Coffee at Duraleigh and Edwards Mill Road and I met him over there for a couple of hours.


Thanks to my dear friend, Etta, for making me aware of a website called, “The Pansy Project.” The site was started by a gay man who decided to plant a single pansy in places where he has been verbally abused for his sexual orientation.

“My research has revealed that the process of planting a pansy at the scene of these incidents alters the participant’s experience of the city. The memorialised locations primarily become a place where the participant has planted a pansy, not where an attack has occurred. This action adjusts the memory of each location which has the effect of overlaying the remembered event in the mind of the participants with a more positive association.”

Perhaps I should attend my upcoming 35th high school reunion, and plant a pansy in all the places on the school grounds in which I heard “Band fag!” during my four years there. A pallet o’ pansies, anyone?

Or, I could replicate the very one below directly from The Pansy Project website, planting it not far from the flag (Doesn’t that represent freedom?) pole in front of the school, in memory of the time I heard the phrase noted below this pansy:

hurled at me just before a fist met my cheek hard enough to knock me to the ground.

You can click on the image to see a slide show of other plantings and their associated epithets, such beauties as:

  • “I think he’s a queer, shall we kill him?”
  • “I think it’s time we went gay-bashing again!”
  • “What the fuck are you looking at? Faggot!”
  • “Faggot!”
  • “You fucking queer cunt!”
  • “Die queer! Die queer! Die queer! Die queer!”
  • “Are you a boy or a girl? Are you a boy or a girl? Are you a boy or a girl?”

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