PR 13 Ep 11: Storage Wars … or … The Bitterest Loser

Well, well, well, wake up to Heidi! Actually, wake up to the surprise [?] that sometime during the night, while you slept, someone crept into your room and left a Samsung tablet on the counter and that’s where you find Heidi the next day, directing you to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and uttering words like “unlock” and “”doors” and “keys.”

Korina thinks they’ll be making clothes from keys. I know!

At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they find Tim waiting in front of five storage lockers; five lockers, six designers? Is this like musical chairs and one will be Auf’d before we start? Nope, this is another designer favorite: team challenge! Tim pulls out the Dreaded Button Bag™ and whittles the six into teams of two.

Everyone wants Kini, but Amanda wins him; Emily and Korina are paired, while Sean gets Char — whom he worries about because she can’t sew … “as well as the rest of us.”

Ruh-roh.

Now together, the designers have $500 to bid on any storage container — some may end up with two containers — and use whatever is inside to create two cohesive looks; they have two days to make treasure from trash.

The first container — chairs and couches — goes to Korina and Emily for just $25. The second containers is filled with children’s toys and plastic pool floaties, but Amanda spots a painting at the back — Psychedelic Yeti — and she must have it; for some reason Kini goes along and they buy it for $190. The third bin — which looks like an actual shipping container with a couple of dressers — goes to Sean and Char, while the fourth bin, the biggest thing inside is an old wedding dress, is won by Korina and Emily. The last containers, has all kinds of leather and mesh — bondage bin? — and Sean and Char, who have the most money, get that one.

The designtestants head back to the workroom and gets started … until Tim shows up with a Twist: there must be a third look, created from fabrics purchased at Mood, but still a cohesive part of the mini-collection.

All set? Let’s rip ….

AMANDA AND KINI

Amanda and Kini are thrilled, WELL, Amanda’s thrilled because she has the fastest Sewer on the PR at her side, but one thing they also have is a pair of giant egos, thinking they’ll win because they picked the weird bin and because, well, Kini, who wants to use soccer balls to make a skirt while Amanda seemed laser focused on the painting.

But then Tim comes by and he is less than impressed; he says what they have created is a “lot of look” and that Kini’s soccer ball skirt and fur bomber jacket is “teenage hooker.” As for Amanda’s Yeti dress, he hates the hanging plastic tablecloth pants and seems to think it’s coming off as amateur hour.

Amanda and Kini, so sure they’d win, start over.

LOOK #1 Pink crop top with pants

AMANDA SAID I think this looks super bold.

I SAID It’s cute, and simple, but the directional arrows to the vagina are off-putting, and not just because I don’t swing that way. 

LOOK #2 Soccer ball dress with fur coat

KINI SAID It doesn’t scream teenage hooker anymore.

I SAID You’re right. It screams low-class call girl in a bathmat jacket.

LOOK #3 Graphic top with full skirt

KINI SAID It’s totally glammed up in a funky way.

I SAID It does have drama, but I felt it was a little safe.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
Nina likes the collection, and loves the Soccer Ball dress; but she asks to have the bathmat, er, ottoman jacket given to the girl in the pink, and then purrs, So much better already. The Adorable Zac Posen™ dubbed the third look clueless, er, Clueless, as in the movie, meaning he liked its 80s vibe; he, also, loved the Soccer Ball dress. Heidi felt their collection was the most creative, and loved the drama of the evening gown look, Guest Judge, and former PR winner, Christian Siriano, called their clothes young and hip, and said they were the kinds of clothes every young girl would want; he did, however, as I did, note the patterned crotch area.

SEAN AND CHAR

They kind of lucked out, because the bin with the furniture and the mover’s blankets also had dressers filled with fabrics. They instantly decide on sportswear, with Sean creating a Mover’s Blanket and Lampshade Coat, while Char goes for Mesh Bomber Jacket and skirt; their third look, ideas by Sean assisted by Char, is an evening gown with mesh strips and a lampshade bottom — I usually wear the lampshade on my head but that’s another story for another day …

Sean is worried because Char needs a lot of help, but they do seem to work very well together, and when Tim comes by he loves Sean’s coat, bit is worried about some trim details on Char’s jacket and the actual lampshade gown.

Korina chimes in that Char is defensive during the critique, but, Pot-kettle-black, we’ll soon see defensive from Korina.

LOOK #1 Quilted jacket, crop top, and skirt

SEAN SAID She looks cool and it gives the whole collection a sporty vibe

I SAID I like it, I like the design, but it still looks too much like a mover’s blanket.

LOOK #2 Black dress with sheer blue top

CHAR SAID She’s trying to be graceful, but it’s hard for her to walk

LOOK #3 Lampshade dress with racerback

SEAN SAID She cannot walk, but she looks cool.

I SAID Word.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

The Adorable Zac Posen™ called it the most cohesive collection, and loved Sean’s jacket, but hated that two of the model’s had trouble walking. He also loathed Char’s look, calling it a Twerking Walk of Shame. Christian Siriano said the proportions were off; he also loved the coat, but said the idea of mesh was over and he hated the model walk, too. Heidi said the model’s should have worked the walk, and loved Sean’s coat, and loved Char’s idea of placing a blue panel on the back of the gown, but called Char’s look both hoochie and boring. Nina chimed in with more coat love, and more transparency hate, but some cohesion love, too.

KORINA AND EMILY

Korina hates Char; she called her dead weight; she reminded us, again and again that Char has been eliminated once before; she told us that Char isn’t as good as everyone, herself included; she tells us that Char will drag Sean to the Bottom.

Ruh-roh. Korina has also decided to call her team, Team Winner, or Winning Team Winner.

Ruh-roh. Korina and Emily got the furniture bin, and that’s they’re starting point—using furniture as fashion, and, at times, almost too literally. Korina will do a blanket cape, a table runner skirt, and a vinyl blouse with placemat cuffs; Emily is doing seat-cushion vest, and placemats and tablecloths as, well, the rest; their third look is a knit that Korina chose form Mood because it looked like something found in a dumpster.

Ruh-roh. Tim dubs Emily’s look Sponge-Bob because of the weird shoulders, and says Korina’s look might be too much, too many, and the third look is, and here’s Tim’s high praise, “not dull.”

Ruh — okay you get where I’m going.

LOOK #1 Sweater with leather leggings

KORINA SAID I love the sweater, I love the look.

I SAID It’s kind of rocker chick in the 80s … and why a hat?

LOOK #2 Structured jacked with skirt

EMILY SAID I love my look, especially the vest

I SAID It looked a little Bag Lady Dumpster Chic; it’s interesting, but is it fashion?

LOOK #3 High-necked cape with and skirt and hat

KORINA SAID I love the way the cape moves, it looks so polished

I SAID Hats and capes and skirts and thigh-boots, oh my! It’s just too much.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Nina scrunches up her face — which is never good — and says she hates the cape; she hates the hat on the girl in the cape; and she is shocked, SHOCKED, that a designer would go into Mood and by that awful knit. She said it wasn’t contemporary, except for Emily’s, and called Korina’s dated and awful. Heidi, though, did like it, and thought there was a clear concept, while The Adorable Zac Posen™ thought theirs was the most soulful collection; he also loved Emily’s cushion look, and also hated Korina’s cape disaster and the pants she made for the Mood look.

Korina snapped, “At least it’s wearable.” And Sean and Char dug the knives from their chests.

Christian said their collection looks like a woman staying in a ski lodge who hasn’t done anything all day, and Nina chimed in with, She hasn’t done anything in decades. Cristina also called the cape sad, and Nina again chimed in with her distaste for Korina falling back on her Southwestern aesthetic — she’s done it four times!

Korina then tosses more daggers at Sean and Char, saying at least people — though she can’t name a single person — would wear her looks, because they can; even Heidi is getting annoyed with Korina and we all know it’s never a good idea to be a bitch in front of, or toward, the judges.

WHAT HAPPENED

Kini gets another win for the Soccer Ball, and Amanda is also safe. Emily, too, gets a save, and Sean joins her, leaving Korina and Char as the Bottom Two.

One will be in and one will be out, but wait! Heidi decides to throw a curveball: Korina and Char have one hour to design a look that doesn’t need to relate to this challenge, using leftover fabrics from previous challenges; plus, they can have their teammate help.

Char and Sean get to work instantly coming up with a plan to use an easy fabric and make a simple, cool chic design. Korina, though, decides that rather than creating a look she likes, she'll pattern sixteen pieces into one dress and then spend the majority of her time pissing and moaning about how she shouldn’t be in the Bottom because she’s so good and Char’s so bad. She even gets her model to call Char’s new look ugly.

But Char created a sexy, form-fitting, cool blue dress with a chiffon cape that was gorgeous. Heidi loved it, saying it could be worn at any number of events. Nina called it modern, and loved the scarf — kudos to Sean for hemming the chiffon perfectly. Christian loved the lightness of the dress and called it a great fit for Sean and Char’s collection.

Korina’s Redo is something she’ll just “put on the runway” because she knows that will get her the win, even though she didn’t finish it and had to pin her model into it. It’s puckered, and boring, and downright Korina. Heidi noted that Korina rolled her eyes when the model walked and Korina said she hated the look, and that her piece in the mini-collection was a better representation of her work.

Ruh-roh.

Then Korina said, side-eyed, to Nina, With the utmost respect about the Southwestern print comment, I’ve done it ONCE and I won that challenge.

Double Ruh-roh. Don’t.Piss.Off.Nina!

Heidi called the fabric choice bad, Christian hated the puckering, The Adorable Zac Posen™ called it “good” for an hour.

When asked why she should win, Char said because she’s versatile; when Korina was asked why she should win, she went Kenley, and began sobbing that she wanted this.

But the judges didn’t and Korina is out, but not quite down. 

In the waiting room, Char begins to sob, even though she won, because it was so hard. Korina silks back in and demands to know if anyone saw this coming — I raised my hand — and then begins going off on Char because she’d been eliminated once already and she’s no good and she’s she’s she’s Char.

Char countered perfectly with the Yes, I got the save, but there have been five challenges since and I’m still here.

Korina snapped, This isn’t about you Char.

Oh, but it was Korina, it was. It was about how much better you think you are than Char; it’s about your giant ego, your bad manners, your rudeness, and, yes, some really bad designs.

It’s also about you leaving and not hugging a single designer. That says volumes.

MY TAKE

My stomach hurt listening to Korina bitch during the final twist. I kept thinking — as Emily pointed out, and props to her for that — that when you act ugly, you create ugly, and that’s what Korina did and that’s why she was sent packing.

I am still tired of Amanda, and still upper” tired of her continuous use of the word “super” in describing a challenge, a fabric, her looks, or anything at all. Stop it! That phrase is as dated as your aesthetic.

Sidenote: Amanda appeared as an actress on this week’s episode of Nashville, working as a stylist for the Juliette Barnes character; she wasn’t half bad.

I haven’t thought much of Emily this season, and I still think her aesthetic is too old and too wacky, but her comments on Korina is a bitch, oops, I mean karma is a bitch were spot on and very welcome.

Line of the night? Sean, when helping Char with the Twist: “I’m helping a competitor not get eliminated, but if I get her into the Top Five, it’s an easy sheep to the slaughter later.”

I.Loved.That.

Next week, Auf’d designers come back, and, quelle surprise, Korina will have to work with Char, and it won’t be good. Is that Elton in the background ♫ ♪ the bitch is back ♪ ♫

What did YOU think?

Would You Hit It?

Allen Leech is an Irish actor who made his acting debut with a small part in a 1998 production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

He made his first major film appearance in Cowboys & Angels and earned an Irish Film & Television Awards nomination in 2004 for his performance in Man About Dog. He gained some international fame as Marcus Agrippa on HBOs Rome, but is perhaps best known as the Tom Branson, chauffeur who married well in the BBCs Downton Abbey.

And that begs the question …

Would.You.Hit.It?

Yes or No.

I Didn't Say It ...

Eric Holder, US Attorney General, on whether or not the country is ready for marriage equality nationwide:

"Yeah, I think the country is ready for that. I think all the polls certainly show that. The reactions to the continuing number of court cases that have found same-sex marriage to be constitutionally mandated -- the polls have shown that the American people, I think, are prepared to accept that. Now this has been a sea change. This is something that has happened, I think, relatively quickly. Part of it is generational. I talk to my kids, who seem, no problems with this, no issues with this at all. But I think it's more than a generational change. I think that people who know folks who are gay, who are lesbian, and who are their friends, their coworkers, they see the moral side to this. Um, it's a civil-rights issue. From my perspective, it is the civil-rights issue of our day — gay and lesbian equality."

Hopefully he can see this through before leaving office, though I do agree, no matter when it happens, it will be sooner rather than later.

Ted Cruz, Teabagging Senator, on his quest for the White House:

"Contrary to media reports this morning, Heidi and I have not made any decisions about political plans past the mid-term elections. Clearly we have an overzealous supporter out there making freelance comments, but to be clear, no decision has been made. Whoever this 'anonymous advisor' was, he or she had no authority to speak, and doesn't know what they're talking about."

Even Cruz knows he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever becoming president. He just wants to boost his own — in his head — popularity.

Richard Blanco, inaugural poet whose Until We Could is being used in a Freedom to Marry video, on his own coming out process:

"I really didn't end up coming out until much later in life ... and what really fascinated me as a writer and as an investigator is, how does that happen? How is it that moment by moment the next notch of courage, the next notch of self-understanding — even though you know you're gay at 12, 13, 14, those words can't even enter your mind. You can't even have the vocabulary; you don't say ‘Gee, I think I'm gay.’ No, it doesn't happen that way. It's just a slow sort of easing into, and all the little things that propel you to that place, all the people that support and move you an inch in that direction. The moment of coming out is really the end of a story — and the beginning of a new one, obviously, but it's really the whole life story to get to that moment."

It is a process, and it takes however long it takes. Since we are all so different, our own coming out, our own coming to terms with being gay and what that means to each of us, our family and friends, is a different path.

All that matters is the end point: coming out.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, on realizing he was gay:

"I kind of learned that I was gay from other kids. I didn’t know what that meant. When you’re that young, you don’t know who you’re attracted to. You don’t know anything. I just knew I was different and I realized by the way other kids treated me that I was gay and that for them, it was not okay.”

I remember hearing that, too, when I was a kid, and not really knowing what it meant, except that it meant I was a target …. Until I realized it just meant I was attracted to boys and then it was So what? Who cares?

Random Musings

Overheard at Work:

Me: CJ? Can you pass me that folder?

My Boss: His name is Clinton ...

Me: Funny, when he introduced himself to me he said his name was CJ so I'll call him CJ.

My Boss: Well, his name was Clinton.

Me: Well, If I were to call people by names that others suggest that I call them, you can only imagine what names I'd be hurling at you ... starts with an 'F' and ends with an 'r'.

It's a wonder I'm employed at all.

Remember when Tim Tebow would score a touchdown and drop to his knees and pray to God or thank God, or just settle for a moment, and people began selling the T-shirts.

Well, when Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah intercepted a Tom Brady pass and returned it for a touchdown he did the same thing: he stopped and thanked his God, too.

The difference? Abdullah was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Oh yeah, he’s Muslim, so maybe that explains why. I guess in football, you can beat your wives and girlfriends, have drug problems, anger issues, but you can’t bow down to thanks your God unless you’re a Christian.

Uh huh.

Bette’s back!

Midler, that is; she is releasing a new album entitled “It’s The Girls!” produced by Mark Shaiman. It is said to be an album of covers, but only from girl groups, from the 1930s through to today.

Think Bette does The Andrews Sisters to The Supremes to En Vogue to Destiny’s Child.

It drops — look at me with the industry-speak — November 4th and should be fa-a-a-a-bulous!

Out there to California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law a bill outlawing the "gay panic" defense in court.

Yup, no more The gay guy asked me to dance so I shot him fifty times defense.

It makes California the first state in the nation to enact this kind of law, and it’s about time.

On TV last week we watched the premier of How To Get Away With Murder, starring the beautiful Viola Davis — quite possibly one of the greatest actresses ever — as a law professor and defense attorney.

It’s from Shonda “Scandal” Rimes so it has that same, WTF just happened feel to it.

It also has some nice eye candy, like Alfred Enoch as the naïve, yet quite hot, law student, Billy Brown — a personal hottie favorite of mine — as Viola’s cop boyfriend, and Jack Falahee, as the Is he gay or is he just having gay sex to close the case student.

A trifecta of hot men, with Viola Davis to boot!

Paybacks are a bitch, especially when the payback is $242,000.

This week a federal court yesterday ordered former GOP Senator  Larry Craig — AKA The Airport Bathroom Toe-Tapper — to pay the government back the $242,000 in campaign funds he used to pay lawyers after being busted trying to hook-up with a dude in a Minneapolis airport restroom.

Craig, a complete and utter homophobe, bigot and all-around tool, says he was entitled to use the funds because was traveling on official Senate business.

Official Senate business is looking for a blow job in an airport john? Sorry, Larry, I ain’t buying that any more than I was buying your story about having a wide-stance.

You’re queer, dear.

After the highly successful ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, the organization Check One Two has created the Crotch Grab Challenge hoping to raise awareness about testicular cancer and encourage men to self-examine down below.

One of the first men to cop a feel, so to speak, was Hugh Jackman, who Tweeted out that photo and challenged Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Strahan and Ricky Gervais.

It sounds like a good challenge, but it annoys me because I have been begging to grab Huge Ackman’s crotch for years.

PS He's really packing!

What the hell is wrong with the Secret Service these days? An intruder hops the fence at the White House and they’re too busy placing a Starbucks order to notice? He races across the lawn and they’re taking selfies? He enters the White House — enters.the.White.House — and they’re challenging one another to the Crotch Grab?

Or, howsabout the time they let an armed man onto an elevator with the President?

It’s ridiculous, unacceptable, and all kinds of wrong, and now Julia Pierson, the boss of the Secret Service, has stepped down. Good; here’s hoping they put someone in charge who realizes that they have ONE JOB: protect the President and the First family.

If they can’t do that, get rid of ‘em.

Filed under: I Don’t Know What To Make Of This

In Ohio, a white lesbian is suing a local sperm bank, charging that they mistakenly sent her sperm from an African-American male and not from a white guy.

Now, this women and her partner adore their mixed race baby, but say they are having difficulty raising her in an all-white community. The suit further states that the plaintiff fears the child will not be accepted by her "all white and unconsciously insensitive family."

Hmmm, is it the mixed race baby, or the fact that you’re a lesbian couple that has your neighbors are twisted.

Either way, who gives a f**k?

An Open Letter to Melissa and Aaron Klein

Dear Melissa and Aaron, 

Sit down. And shut up. The more you talk and kvetch and moan and play the Poor Me card the more you sound like hateful homophobes and bigots and small-minded, narrow-minded, close-minded, no minded fools.

That said, let me backtrack in case anyone has forgotten who you are: you’re the Oregon baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman’s same-sex wedding because God. You know, because God handed down that Eleventh Commandment Thou Shalt Not Bake Cakes For Queer Weddings. Or something.

And then the couple you inflicted your bigotry upon sued, and you whined some more about God and Jesus and how, in your Bible, hate and homophobia are accepted, until the state of Oregon said what I said at the beginning of this letter: sit down and shut up … and bake that cake.

But you still refused so you decided to cut off your nose to spite your face and close the doors to your shop, and create your Bigot Baked Goods in your own home so you can still spread the hate; and keep talking and kvetching and whining and moaning.

I mean, how else do we explain your appearance — a freaking’ cake decorator — at the Values Voter Summit [VVS], AKA Hate The Gays Summit? And for those who don’t know, the VVS is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group because, well, it is a hate group.

And poor Melissa, so distraught over being asked to perform a service for which her business was created, to bake a cake, began weeping as she talked about how her rights were violated and how much she misses talking to straight couples about their weddings:

“For me personally when I would sit down with them I just would want to know everything about her wedding. I'd want to know about the flowers, her dress, the centerpieces, her colors, the way her hair is going to be. I would even want to talk about 'where are you going on your honeymoon?'"

And you can’t do that with a gay couple? And, well, even if you could, what business is it of yours to stick your nose into other’s business? You are asked to bake a cake, not interview me and ask me about my wedding; you are to bake a cake, for which you will be paid, and with that money you can live your life and keep hating. But instead, you decide to deny a gay couple’s request for pastries and shutter your business and then take to the road on a Pity Party Tour.

You’re an idiot, Melissa, if you don’t see that refusing to bake a cake, i.e. do your job, for a same-sex couple is not at all different from running the Woolworth lunch counter in the South back in the middle of last century and telling Blacks that they can’t eat there because, well, again, God didn’t want Blacks and Whites sittin’ next to each at lunch.

You don’t see that; all you see is a same-sex couple and that’s just disgusting. But I’m done with you, Melissa, because you don’t get it, you won’t get it, and one day, in the very near future, you will be an asterisk in the march toward marriage equality; an asterisk leading to the story about the idiot baker who shut her doors rather than bake a cake for gay couple. One day, in the very near future, and long after that, people will giggle at how ridiculous you were, and probably still are.

And now, for you, Aaron, and what you said at the VVS:

“To be told they’re going to force me to convey a message other than what I want to convey — it flies in the face of the Constitution. It’s a violation of my conscience. It’s a violation of my religious freedom. It’s horrible to see your own government doing this to you….We had to shut the shop down. Melissa does very limited cakes out of our house. I mean we're facing in excess of $150,000 of damages for this, just for simply standing by my first amendment rights."

First off: you were not being told to convey a message; you were asked to bake a cake. And you were not asked to condone the wedding, go to the wedding, sing at the wedding, dance at the wedding, drink at the wedding, or even eat the freaking cake at the wedding. You were asked to do a job for which you opened a public business.

And if it’s cost you $150,000 that’s just a small price to pay for being allowed to be a bigot and run around the country and complain to a group of like-minded bigots and homophobes.

And them after your appearance at HateFest, you took to Facebook to continue talking about Poor You, and you decided to use anti-gay activist Rick Warren’s “Two Huge Lies” lie in your post:

“Our culture has accepted 2 huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. Second is that to love someone means that you must agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”

First off, it isn’t a lifestyle, and if you think it is a lifestyle, first go get a dictionary and look up the word, and then explain to me what the ‘heterosexual’ lifestyle is. What this is, what being gay is, is a sexual orientation, just like being straight, only we are attracted to members of our own gender. It’s not a lifestyle, it’s a life, so, when you’re done whining, stop spreading that lie.

Secondly, no one, no one, least of all Rachel and Laurel are asking that you agree with them, or love them; we’re just asking you to bake a cake, get paid for it, and then shut up.

Seriously. Shut up. People are already finding you two ludicrous and it’ll only get worse from here on out. Imagine your grandchildren opening a history book — or, by then it’ll probably be a history app — and finding your names listed as being anti-gay, anti-equality. Imagine your grandchildren laughing about that.

Gosh, what were they thinking? It was just a cake?

Just a cake.

Sincerely,

Bob and Carlos

Gay and getting married. get used to it.

Architecture Wednesday: A2 House

This house is one of my favorites to feature: an old home, in this case an old Italian farmhouse, transformed into a modern day home with a new, more efficient, more 21st century layout, with restored and renovated facades but all new mechanical systems.

It’s old and new.

While there was no increase to the existing historic volumes, a series of service rooms in very poor condition were demolished to reveal the building’s original structure. The new home is 5800 square feet on three levels to be used for the social and artistic life of the owners – a film producer and an art collector.

I love the old beams, and the modern crisp white walls; I love the cutouts in the walls to let light into interior spaces. I love the way the rooms flow into one another and on top of one another.

And I love that the farmhouse, via a sandstone arch, is connected to the Pieve (Church) of Santo Stefano in Cennano. The church was once an Etruscan site, evidenced by the many graves, urns and inscriptions unearthed in the area, and once it was a pagan temple, and once again it was a Christian church. Inside the church, the three apses have survived while the interior is now a single nave.

Since the parish declined in the 14th and 15th centuries — and then completely abandoned — the church has been restored to its simple glory. It’s no longer a house of God, but just another part of a spectacular home.

It’s somehow new again.

source

Happy Birthday Jeri

Life is strange; I’ll start there.

My mother passed away from lung cancer on February 17, 2007, and this past February 15, 2014, my sister passed away from the same disease. I somehow knew my sister, who had been in failing health, would go right around the same time as when my mother passed. I took a psychology course in college called “Death and Dying” and was amazed at how many terminally ill people wait until an anniversary, or birthday, or significant day has passed, or has come around again, before they, too, pass on.

It should also be noted that on February 14, 2009, my Aunt Pam also died from lung cancer, so February is not a happy month in my family, but I digress ….

My mother’s 77th birthday was last week, on the 27th, and naturally, though she isn’t here, I spent a great deal of time thinking about her because we’d celebrated that day for so long and just because the person is no longer here doesn’t mean the day doesn’t matter.

All of that leads me to today, which is my sister’s birthday, and the first one to pass since she died. I am reminded that my sister died a couple of days before the anniversary of my mom’s passing, and that their birthdays are also just a few days apart. It seems fitting, and still unbearably sad.

Still, I 'll think of good times, happy times, big sister stories. Today is about my big sister, older than me by just fifteen months. That’s not a lot of time, really, and even though we were a couple of grades apart in school, we were very close in age, but that’s about it. We were very different people; very different, even though I learned a lot from her, about myself, about my life, about life, and today, on what is, and will always be her birthday, I’m remembering all she taught me.

My big sister; my very first best friend; I loved her from the moment I was born, and I imagine she'd say she loved me from that second, too, even if I was 'the new baby.'

My big sister; we were very different. She was gregarious and out-going and had tons of friends and was always doing something. I was shy, almost petrifyingly so — my mom used to joke that I didn't start talking until I was eighteen — and I had just a handful of friends.

My big sister; she could be as stubborn as a mule, and had quite the temper, while I always tried to please, and be the nice one, and not draw attention to myself. We were as different as night and day, and as thick as thieves.

My sister has cancer, had cancer. Now she doesn't, now she's safe and free and doesn't hurt and has her hair, and might be sitting with my mother right now, talking things over, and reminiscing some. That makes me feel a little better. My big sister and I have like minds on death: there is no fear of it, though there is also no anticipation for it. There is just this sense that death is part of our journey and, naturally, a necessary step.

My big sister; she taught me all sorts of things, even though she wasn’t all that much older. But she gave me life lessons, some which took, and others which took a while.

This story is about a basketball game, and a pair of high school mascots. Our school team was the Cougars and there were a pair of Cougars who stood on the sidelines during football and basketball season, riling up the crowds, playing with the cheerleaders and generally just having fun.

One night, one of the mascots couldn't make the game, and she asked my sister to take her place. The other girl also begged off, and, well, my sister asked me. I said, 'No.’

As a young closeted gay kid, I did not draw attention to myself; I stayed in the shadows as much as I could, but when my sister asks, well, sometimes it feels like an order. And so I thought about it; I thought it might be fun to not be me for a while. So, I relented.

The costumes were big, furry, heavy, and hot, but I kept my cougar head on all night so no one knew it was me. Still, it gave me the chance to act in public like I wanted to act, and not like I thought I should. I learned that it was okay to be different, to march to a different drummer, to act the fool, to have fun for fun’s sake. To not care what people thought about you.

Again, it was a lesson that took a while to stick; there were other lessons that needed to be learned first, like accepting myself, coming out, and allowing others to accept me, too, but for those couple of hours on a Friday night in November, 19fumphity-fumphy, I was my one true self … under a fur covered head, yes, but my one true self.  I learned from my sister that it was okay to be yourself, because she knew who that fool in the cougar costume was, but she still loved him, no matter how he acted.

I've been thinking about more of those times since today should have been cake and cards and phone calls, but is now, mostly silent.

I’ve been thinking about all of the lessons my sister taught me ... and this is another one:

My sister joined the Air Force many moons ago and began moving around the world — Spain and Germany — and back again; Delaware, and I think New Mexico was in there, too. But soon enough she came back to California where the family lived and we got to see one another more often.

She was a mountain girl, living in a small town in the foothills outside Sacramento, while I lived smack dab in the middle of our Capitol City. We were quite different; she enjoyed gardening, I enjoyed nice dinners with good wine; she was garage sale, I was Macy's. She was married, I was gay.

Different. But this story isn't about that. This story is about the day she taught me what I think is the greatest lesson a person could learn: how to say I love you. See, I was good at writing those words on a card, or signing them at the bottom of a letter, but I wasn't too keen on saying them out loud for whatever reason. 

But, one day, many years ago, she called to chat — my sister loves to chat on the phone and I loathe it ... yet another difference — and we talked about all kinds of things, from what we were doing to what the world was doing. At the end of the chat, as we were saying our goodbyes, she said, All right then, I love you.

I said, Thanks. And I hung up.

Thanks? That was my response to my sister saying I love you? I mean, I guess I meant Thank you for loving me but that isn't really the correct response either, is it? So, as I tend to do, I sat there after that phone call and wondered why it was so hard for me to say those words, and I realized that I come, came, from a family that didn't really ever 'say' the words. We showed our love; we knew we were loved; I guess we all just felt we didn't have to 'say' it. 

Also, I thought, subconsciously, that I didn't deserve to be loved because I was the 'different' one; the gay son. I mean, my parents knew I was gay, and they were fine with it; they loved me. But I’ve always wondered if they ever hoped that I wasn't gay; what parent wants a gay kid? No matter how much you love them, as a parent, you realize their lives would be easier if they weren't gay. So, I felt loved, but at the same time, unworthy of being loved because I wasn't the 'son' that had been expected.

My sister, however, thankfully, thought differently. Just saying I love you so easily and simply, without force, made me realize that I was worth it.  And I thank her for that. See, after that conversation, and after my introspection, I listened to what she was saying: we all knew we were loved but she wanted us to hear it. And that made a huge difference.

I didn’t change overnight and turn into one of those people that say I love you at the drop of a hat; it took time. And, I think the first time I said it back to her I probably choked on the words a little bit, as though they were somehow foreign to me, but it got easier and more natural.

And, I think it helped push away some of the Old Bob who might have been fearful of love and being loved. I think, having my sister teach me that lesson made it all the easier for me to tell Carlos I loved him, and to hear him say it back to me, and to keep telling him and telling him and telling him.

It wasn't that my sister loved me, I always knew that, and I always will know that, it's that she made me realize I was worth it, and I could say it, and hear it and mean it and be it. That's just one of the lessons my sister taught me.

My sister, my big sister. My hero. So while today hurts, for so many reasons, I want to think back on the laughs. The time we had a party at the house while my mother and father took our little brother to an A’s game in Oakland, and how my parents never caught on; at least until we told them, years later, after the statute of limitations was up.

I want to think of my sister who was a wonderful mother, to four wonderful girls; she instilled in each of them her independence, her sense of self, her sense of worth, her joy, her love.

I want to think of my sister with her husband, Tom. It took her a while to find him, but when she did it was the best thing she ever did. No one made my sister as happy and loved and comfortable and peaceful and filled with life, as Tom.

So, I'm gonna sit for a while and think about the last time we were all together and stood still long enough for a picture. I'm going to laugh and smile, and feel loved, and feel love ...

For my sister.