Subject: Roberts' Rules: surreal
From: "Shelly Roberts" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 19:28:22 +0000

ROBERTS' RULES
by Shelly Roberts

SURREAL LIFE.

I'm an avid collector.

Which is not to be confused with Pack Rat, although anyone entering my
house today as a surprise mystery guest would be hard pressed to
determine a significant difference. 

I collect carnival glass. That stuff they gave away at turn of the
century carnivals  for knocking over steel milk bottles. I also
collect glass banks distributed by milk companies in the days when
both doctors and milk men made house calls. I collect passport stamps
as a holdover from my college days when cheap souvenirs were the best
I could afford. 

And, for years, unremittingly, I have also collected SURREALISM IN
EVERYDAY LIFE. Observations and incidents of inordinate amusement if
you're really paying attention. Oxymorons in daily living.  Like why
it is that dogs never know where to look when you point? 

My two in-print favorites, worthy of a Tonight Show, were this
tabloid headline proclaiming [BEGIN ITALIC]"Mistaken as Woodchuck,
Wife Shot."[END ITALIC] Wow, talk about your little missus. 

And a west coast classified for a law firm offering divorces and gun
licenses. 

This morning's mail delivered another one. It is November 20th,
1996. The Presidential Election, and Senator Robert Dole are behind
us. William Jefferson Clinton is re-elected, which is not the
surrealism of which I speak. (Well, maybe not yet, but that remains to
be seen, doesn't it?) 

This Surrealism In Every Day Life was a letter from the Executive
Director of one of those big, national, rainbow, initialed, political
organizations which all look pretty much interchangeable from outside
the Beltway. It boasted a huge, fake watermarked eagle and the header
carried the names of  a bunch of those other big, national, political,
rainbow, initialed organizations. 

"Dear Blah, 

"I'm writing to you blah blah. Advanced notice blah blah blah.
Fundraiser blah blah elections.105th Congress. 

"What is absolutely clear is that the issue of protecting gay and
lesbian Americans in employment emerged not only as a common sense
issue for the political center, but as a winning issue in this
election. (Nope. Hold on. That's not the one, although if you read
that over a couple of more times, it could be.) (Here it comes):

"Our successes, along with those of (the other rainbow, political,
national, initialed, big, organizations) are worth celebrating. We
hope you will plan on joining other members from all these
organizations at our unique inaugural party!"

That's it!  That's the one.  It's an invitation TO THE GAY AND 
LESBIAN INAUGARAL BALL!

OUR inaugural. Just like the ones for the labor unions, and DNC
volunteers.  And anybody else delivering winning votes. Us. 

Party animals to party regulars in just under 30 years. 

That's bizarre if you're over 30. And pretty surreal for a lady who
stuck here lesbian nose above water in 1972 to find Mafia bars, secret
handshakes, shock therapy and disinheritance. Abomination and
separation.  Distance and damnation. 

Is it just me, or do some of you also think it's just a teeny tiny
touch fantastical having a government sanctioned (albeit private)
celebration in front of gods and goddesses, politicians and CNN? A
ball that isn't a drag. Where, while some women will, no doubt opt for
tuxedos, most likely none of the men will don ball gowns. 

Now lest you think I am subtly nyah-nyahing about getting an invite
when you didn't, (Okay, well, maybe a little. I'm still human.) [BEGIN
ITALIC] you're[END ITALIC] also invited. All it takes is 150 buck$.
Each. Cough up three bills per couple, get in the door, have a slice
of pastrami on a mini bagel, and pay for your own drinks. Not to
mention the four or five bills for the hotel, roundtrip airfare, a
heavy coat if you live in a sunshine climate like I do, cabs, and a
general miscellany of things like eating and using your cell phone to
tell your mother that you personally stepped on Tipper Gore's toe, or
that Joe Kennedy stood no more that a few hundred yards from this very
spot.) 

A thousand bucks easy.  Just call Box Office Tickets at
1-800-494-8497 and tell them that you want a gay ol' time in DC in
January. 

Personally, if the credit cards will stand it, I'm planning to go.

Because I think it'll be a collector's item soon.  We're becoming so
commonly mainstream now that our centers are closing around the
country for lack of support. Our businesses are doing the same. We've
gotten so integrated that some of us have even become Republicans.
(Don't get me started on THAT surrealism.)  

By the millennium when they conveniently scheduled the next
Presidential election, we should be entirely undetectable again.
Completely absorbed into the society around us. 

Invisible to Invisible in twenty-eight years. 

When my grandson asks me what I did in the revolution, I intend to
tell him that I went to a disappearing ball and danced and danced and
danced. I'll show him this invitation I saved for my collection.
Although, at a thousand bucks, cheap souvenirs are getting
considerably more expensive. He'll probably think I am weird. 

Maybe even surreal.

 ________________________ 

(C) 1996. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved. May be reprinted only
in its entirety with written permission.

[BEGIN ITALIC] Shelly Roberts is a nationally syndicated columnist,
speaker, and author of the #1 best-selling Roberts' Rules of Lesbian
Living. Spinsters Ink.[END ITALIC]