as she deserves to be remembered

This morning I set off with my camera. I have decided to bring it along with me more often these days, because from what I can tell, I may soon be leaving. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and let my loud music fade off. I got to the point, about six months ago that I can't get lost here, even if I try. I got to the point where all roads lead to home.
Maybe its not such a big city after all. I had stopped to take some shots of tulips in a road-median on Stinson and later received a call from my cousin wondering if it was me he had seen.
Minneapolis sways and groans and lets us all have her. In a matter of minutes you can go from crusty young bikers dressed in skinny jeans and short brimmed hats to business men yelling into their earpieces. Cruise a few more blocks and you will find half dazed women pushing babies in strollers and if you stick around you might run into your aunt, or forth grade teacher. Bikes whiz by like birds. I have danced in the streets with Mayan decedents and knocked on doors which have been opened by refugees who woke at dawn to cook goat for me and my family and entertain us late into the evening. Minneapolis is a rare retrieve, where Minnesota's infrastructure flourishes. Como zoo swells each summer with immigrants from Laos celebrating the summer days away.

The roads taught me to swerve quickly from parked cars and avoid their lazily opened doors, on my bike, but also the ecstasy of flying downtown in the dark of the night the cool breeze escalated by my speed with the buildings glowing behind me. Last week I stumbled, drunk with happiness not booze from Picosa after salsa dancing with strangers for hours onto the banks of the Mississippi and saw the skyline just blocks away beaming onto the water and thought "damn, is she sexy", and smiled as I climbed into my car to head home. Shit. I was already there.
She is too. Very sexy indeed. You can roll over the 35W bridge and breath her in, or crane your neck flying down 10th avenue and watch her glisten at you, the river doubling her beauty. In 7corners you will loose track of the number of theaters, and in uptown I dare you to go into a franchise store. The Greenway will bring you straight through the city and back to the lakes and if you want, you can probably draft behind a perfect stranger.
Another evening we rolled through the park and saw an enormous screen playing an old movie, with the city, across the Stone-arch bridge, gleaming behind. We smiled and pedaled on, for we had places to be.
Waiting on a bridge taking in the view over Hiawatha a smiling young man approached us one night and with laughs traded a cigarette for a beer.
One semester, I chatted with the same man, at the same time, for three weeks both of us shivering into our coats as we waited for our bus transfers downtown outside the central library to haul us home after our night classes at the U. He initially wanted to bum a smoke off of me, but since I don't, he ended up bumming a conversation instead.
Minneapolis is a great place. I know this. Alright fine, I probably don’t really know this. If I leave I will probably finally appreciate the liberal policies, the warm people, even if I never do come to appreciate the cold air.
At least, right now, I can remember her. As she deserves.

save the sanctity of marriage?

This afternoon I saw some friends add themselves on facebook as "becoming a fan" of Protecting Marriage, one man and one women. Really guys? Come on.
And as you may have expected....I got a little upset. Its may not be the reasons you thought of though. I can be okay with an individual hoping that marriage is saved for one and one women. I personally do not believe such and am comfortable and happy to say that I think love and commitment is found in all forms, yet I want to respect people's religions and beliefs and experiences enough not to react to their opinion. The problems is that losing the sanctity of marriage did indeed happen, but not when two men or two women got married legally. It was gone far and away long before that. When we listlessly (yet loyally) watched shows that auctioned off a "marriage" to young women for a handsome millionaire. That left it at the ground with a chunk taken out and a crack on the bottom. When our paparazzi follows celebrities here and there with cameras on trips couples take and fill their every moments with video cameras. And we happily watch and browse the magazines in line at the grocery store. We lost a bunch then too. When Craigslist has a section for "casual encounters", where people can get together and married men and women not openly admit they are married but that they are seeking to fulfill their sex drives with some who can be discrete. And that they might pay that person's rent for it. The fact that those posts get responses. Yeah, I'm just going to say we didn't have much left after that.

I make me disappointed to see a culture that doesn't acknowledge that these are some of the things that push our divorce rate so high, these are the reasons that marriages somethings mean nothing. I would like to get married someday. And more importantly, I would like that marriage to be faithful to the end of my days. Harm and threats from society at making this happen have nothing to do with whether or not my gay friends are legally allowed to do that too.