the greatest kuncle in the world

this morning, in an act of pure selflessness, i drove to meet my sister D, the nurse, at her work to pick up my three year old nephew, L, and entertain him since his dad was on a "guys trip" [which happens to be hetero-code for getting drink with his buddies at a campsite in oklahoma]. it was hard to get motivated since i was out late last night [okay it was early morning when i made it home] and was surviving on less than three hours of sleep.

my nephew calls me "kuncle," having not quite mastered the word "uncle," yet. we came back to my place and he watched a movie for a couple of hours, it was, afterall still an un-christian hour to be awake. i thought i could nap while he watched tv, pulling the old "tv-as-babysitter" routine, but this plan was thwarted when he began to ask every thirty seconds, in a three-year-old voice, "what happened, kuncle?"

i took him to brunch later this morning, since i am convinced he will grow up to be one of the "chosen ones," and figured he'd better get used to the both the word and the concept that is "brunch." his mother worries that he will grow up to be gay since he loves all of the villain women in the disney movies, though tinkerbell, the fairy, being no villain, is his favourite of all time. he even pitched a hissy fit once in target for his mom to buy him the princess pull-up pants when he was potty training. the signs are there, are they not: strong women villains, tinkerbell, princess pull-ups? when he masters the art of brunch, i figured we'd move on to how to pour the perfect cocktail. but, i digress...

after brunch, he wanted to get some pumpkin seeds so he can plants them [gardening!] and grow pumpkins, so we headed to what i convinced him was the pumpkin seed store: homo depot. hey, i figured i'd cruise men at the same time as perusing through the gardening center looking for pumpkin seeds. ironically, there were neither pumpkin seeds not hot men to cruise. curses! instead i took him to the farmer's market where i let him pick out the biggest pumpkin [he calls them punk-o' lanterns] he could find. and my arms got a nice workout schlepping it back to the car.

for the afternoon, i had made plans for he and i to take the train to the zoo where there was a "boo at the zoo" event for kids for halloween. we ran back to my place for what was supposed to be a quick costume change before heading to the train station. i threw on some sensible shorts, a long-sleeve t-shirt and flip flops, and L, the nephew, was in a smart pirate outfit, complete with brocade vest and silk pirate shirt [fabrics!] and matching shoes with a miniature skull-and-crossbones pattern [shoes to match his outfit!]. i had no sooner got him buckled into the carseat when he decided that we had to go back to my apartment so he could change: he wanted to go to the zoo as spiderman, not as a pirate. of course he's going to be gay, he's three and already can't decide what outfit to wear. what's even more amazing is that he actually had both costumes in the car. his spiderman outfit was just adorable, it even had rippling chest and bicep muscles. tell me that is not a gay trait!

when we got to the zoo, i joined the rest of the hetero families and pushed L around in a stroller. i was surprised that he took no interest in any of the traditionally gay animals at the zoo, like pink flamingoes, minks, or lionesses, but instead kept insisting we go directly to the bugs and snakes [butch!].

at the end of the day, as zero hour was approaching, when his mother would be stopping by to pick him up, i was worn out and in desperate need of a cocktail. i didn't have the energy to teach him how to freepour, so i sent him home with his mom without a to-go cup. then i came in and immediately took a disco nap. one of the biggest lessons i learned today, besides the fact that home depot does not carry seeds on a year round basis, or that dallas is crawling with hottie-daddy types, was that parents age twice as fast and move twice as slow as the rest rest of the world. no wonder there is such a concept as" gay time." it's obviously a learned behavior we get from our parents since nothing ever happens on time when there are kids involved and L is following right along smoothly.

in the background::u2:beautiful day