OMG, I watched this ran­domly just now, and I can’t stop cry­ing. If only we had this 20 years ago. I totally could have used it.

1. “Panic” — The Smiths
2. “New Friend” — No Doubt
3. “Que Mas Da” — Ricky Mar­tin
4. “Song for the Lonely” — Cher
5. “Trust Me” — The Motels
6. “Come into My World” — Kylie Minogue
7. “Survival” — Madonna
8. “I Drove All Night” — Céline Dion
9. “Si tu m’aimes” — Lara Fabian
10. “Another Girl’s Paradise” — Tori Amos

So, V&I are now offi­cially domes­ti­cally part­nered in the state of Cal­i­for­nia. We have talked about get­ting mar­ried some day — if this coun­try ever gets its shit together and joins the rest of the civ­i­lized world — and being DPs is the first step in that direc­tion. It’s not at all required, but in the mean time, we can get a taste of the legal rights the state will give us, which don’t seem to be all that many. And since I’m not work­ing full time enough to have ben­e­fits, it was the only way for me to be put on his ben­e­fit plan. So, I will have health and den­tal and vision again.

It’s kinda weird. For years and years, I never had health ben­e­fits, and then even when I did have cov­er­age I never used it. I went sev­en­teen years with­out see­ing a den­tist, and my teeth were in great shape. Since I was laid off six months ago, I’ve been with­out cov­er­age, and it’s in the back of my mind that if any­thing hap­pened to me, it would be a finan­cial dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen. So, all of a sud­den, I feel a sense of respon­si­bil­ity to the one I love to get my shit cov­ered so nei­ther of us is put in an unnec­es­sary posi­tion. And you know, I totally blame the United States of Amer­ica for this bull­shit. I’m not going to go all polit­i­cal about this because there are plenty of other places to find that, but hon­estly, we are sup­pos­edly the last remain­ing super­power on the planet, and we can’t pro­vide basic health­care for our own cit­i­zens with­out cries of social­ism or com­mu­nism from the igno­rant and scared — who would be the most to ben­e­fit from such mea­sures! If we lived in the UK, this wouldn’t be an issue. If we lived in Canada, France, Nor­way, Fin­land, even Peru and Brazil, this wouldn’t be an issue. It’s sad and depress­ing, and I don’t know what it’s going to take for this coun­try to wake up to the lies and dou­ble­s­peak that are being fed to them by the obnox­iously wealthy greedy power-hungry moth­er­fuck­ers who run this place. Cap­i­tal­ism will be the demise of this coun­try. Oh my fuck­ing god.

So, V is sub­mit­ting the paper­work today, and I should be cov­ered as of Octo­ber 1st. That’s good news. But at the same time, I feel like Jacky in Howards End. The for­mer pros­ti­tute who was wait­ing for her non­com­mit­tal lover to marry her was always wor­ry­ing about money and how they were going to sur­vive. She didn’t work, Len did that, and not that well. So she wor­ried for good rea­son. At one point in the movie, she’s a lit­tle des­per­ate in her lacy naughty bits, and she asks: “Len, are you going to make it all right?” That’s how I feel now. I’ve cho­sen to be a stu­dent and get my edu­ca­tion squared away, and in exchange for that, I’ve given up my full time career — such as it was — to work part time-ish and spo­rad­i­cally. I feel like I’m start­ing to rely on V for more and more, even though that’s not the case. I have my own money, I pay my own share of things. We don’t have a joint account or any­thing, and I don’t think we will any­time soon. So, basi­cally, I’m being melo­dra­matic about it all, and well, there’s noth­ing new there.

So with that, it’s Fol­som week­end here in beau­ti­ful, sunny San Fran­cisco, so put on your leathers and har­nesses and get out your chips, dips, chains, and whips (no can­dle wax on the nip­ples or witch­craft, tho), and go out and have fun!