Today's Special

The sun--and everyone in town, it seems--is out. We sat on a bench at the lake and looked at the trees reflected in the surface. Unspeakable beauty.


I was watching some neighbor kids today, wondering about their lives. They now live in what they'll later refer to as their childhood home. They are now in what they'll later refer to as their childhood. I wonder if they'll stay in this home, in this neighborhood, for their whole childhood. They go to school with kids they know. They live next to people they know. I wonder, what's it like to move when you're a kid? I never did. I packed my first box and moved for the first time when I left my parents' house at nineteen. Not that that's a good thing.


Recently, KING 5, the Seattle news station, presented a piece I have to assume was considered a news story about an Ikea newspaper advertisement featuring two men. The men were in the kitchen, one feeding a toddler, the other, holding a baby and wearing an apron. The reporter in the piece was going around showing the ad to people on the street and soliciting their opinions. He actually asked if they noticed anything unusual about the ad. I was angry about the ignorance and prejudice represented by the piece. I felt that KING 5 displayed, at the very least, disrespect to gays and lesbians by implying that their home lives were unusual and that they are not worthy to be featured in a home furnishings advertisement. The sheer pettiness of the reporter and his "story" insulted my intellect. Silly me, expecting news from a news station. I wrote an email to the station to communicate my shock and disgust. I championed my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and chastised the station for wasting my time with a non-news event when people are homeless and kids are hungry and we're at war. I asked the news editor if they presented similar "man on the street" interviews when the first African Americans showed up in a print advertisement. I lambasted and chastised. I was incredulous and articulate. I expected an apology or a telephone call or a thank you for pointing out the error of their ways.

I received an "out of office" reply.