I found a dead mockingbird behind the glider in our backyard when I was preparing to mow on Saturday, but I didn't kill it, so I won't get the bad luck. I suspect a neighborhood cat.

I went to see Pearl Harbor on Friday night as planned; the no-sex date Deb and I had scheduled for Saturday night turned into a yes-sex date because Deb wanted to get beaten, and you can't have a good beating without sex in our household; Sara and I also had a date on Sunday while Deb went nursery (as in plants, not baby stuff) shopping; and Sara and Jake and I plan to go see "Shrek" this afternoon while Deb is at work.

"Pearl Harbor" is more like "Titanic" than like "Saving Private Ryan". The battle sequence is fabulous and engrossing, but not as harrowing and brutally gory and Peckinpaw (sp?)-ish as SPR. The dialog and character development is about as shallow as you would expect, but I liked the polyamory-type love story and I think Affleck did a decent job. The clothes were gorgeous. Americans knew how to dress in the '40s. How low have we sunk now? Deb says that the gay men in Midtown are now wearing capri pants. *Badsnake shakes head in shame for her people.*

I could not buy Jon Voigt as Roosevelt. He seemed to be rushing lines in the "a day that will live in infamy" speech, as if that were the point where the director decided to shave 30 seconds off a three-hour movie. I mean, it's a speech that you've heard the recording of all your life; it sounds weird when the timing is not the same.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. got, proportionally to the length of the movie, about as much screen time as the black woman who tossed the baseball back onto the field in "A League of Their Own", and for the same reasons�a token acknowledgement of segregation and discrimination. But to cover that topic with justice would take a different movie.

Dan Ackroyd was good as the Navel code breaking team guy. And I also liked the actor who played Captain Jackson (I think that was the character's name). He's the same actor who played the guy in "Alien Resurrection" who was part of the human cargo delivered by the Betty and who hooks up with Sigourney Weaver and the remaining Betty crew about halfway through the movie. The one who blows an alien out of his chest and through the head of the evil scientist near the end. That actor (Leland Orser, I think) is supremely good at acting sweatily nervous.

The Japanese were portrayed as highly disciplined and better military strategists at the time of the attack. Not evil caricatures.

I had gone in to watch the film thinking there would be an intermission. At three hours and three minutes, why wouldn't there be? I thought I had even read somewhere that there was an intermission. But no.

Gawain, take note: Women will line up to give you blow jobs if you just insert a damned intermission into the middle of this film. I'd suggest just before the battle sequence. You're the projectionist. You have the power. Again: Intermission in "Pearl Harbor" = Blow Jobs for the Projectionist.

I saw the film at our local Magic Johnson theater in, I'd guess, about a 900-seat theater. Big. Ass. There were about 50 people there for the 7:00 p.m. showing. I desperately had to pee (here come the Google hits from Japan) after the film was over and went to the ladies room, which has about 180 stalls, God bless you Magic, and there's never any waiting. As I was drying my hands, I listened to the comments of an elderly black lady nearby. You know the saying "black don't crack" is true, so I couldn't tell how old she was exactly. She still had a really nice figure, but she was gray haired and moved more stiffly than my mother (67), so I'd guess she was a teenager during WWII. She said, "Well it sure was long enough. That movie lasted 'bout as long as the war did." Heh. Guess she had to pee pretty bad, too.

Deb decided she wanted to get beaten on Saturday because her muscles were all tense. She said she was at work, twisting her neck around the way you do when it's stiff, when her coworker Dwight noticed and said, "You need a day off" (or a massage or something like that). Deb said, "I need a good beating." She said he couldn't have looked any more shocked.

"You wouldn't believe how relaxing it is," she explained to him. He didn't want to hear about it.

So when Deb got home, we ate a light dinner and went up to the attic. I worked her over with the flogger, the stinger, the razor strop, and the little bundle of switches that even I like the feel of. She could only stay on her feet so long, so I kept going while she kneeled on her hands and knees on the futon. I even gave her a bit of a back rub. But then I tried trailing the knife tip across the skin of her back, thinking it would be a nice refreshing contrast, but she was NOT into that after I'd gotten her all mellowed and relaxed. Sex was had. All was good.

Sunday was Bacon Day (whee!). I walked four miles with Sara before breakfast (she did eight). We read the newspaper and ate waffles (known in some circles as Lesbian Pancakes) and bacon. It was very nice. We haven't had a regular family (with all four of us) breakfast since the weekend before Mothers Day.

Sara and I got permission to have a date. After breakfast, she went up to the attic to read and have a little snooze. The plan was for me to come up later and wake her up. I washed breakfast dishes and read a little bit and got snoozy myself, so I decided to go nap with her in the attic before I started the date.

I sort of succeeded. I think I dozed a little bit, but Sara kept grinding her ass up against me, and what's a dyke supposed to do, huh? I started out with a variation on the seduction theme that we did on Thursday ('cause I had so much fun with that one), but it got more pretend-nonconsensual than I felt like playing, so we switched gears and went into Julian and Eleanor. I practiced trying no to leave marks and did rather well. Maybe a bruise on one of her arms, but that's it.

The date wound up with a crescendo of major splashing. We managed to get spray on both pillows. Wow.

Casualties: sheets, including both pillow cases, three towels, one bed pad, two latex gloves.

Oh, and Sara was wearing this jumper all day yesterday without a shirt underneath it. She does that sometimes when she's just hanging around the Rancho. Got distracted by the view every time she leaned forward the least little bit. I suggested that she wear that when we go hang out with Miguelito next weekend.

Deb made an awesome dinner last night. Garlic, black beans, turkey, tomatoes, onions, green chilis baked inside a cornbread and made in a deep cast iron skillet. Yuh-um.

It was 8:45 before we sat down to dinner. I was pretty hungry. Deb said she hadn't decided what to call the dish yet. I suggested Phil ... pause ... "As in Phil me up right now, dammit." We eventually decided on Deep-dish Turkey Phil.

I got a couple questions in my guestbook from people who didn't leave e-mail addresses, so I'll answer here.

Wondering asks "am I a girl or a guy?" Well, if you haven't read my profile (link at the very bottom of my page) where I say that I'm a lesbian, I can see how it might be hard to figure out, what with me talking about my cock(s) all the time. Thought the fact that my dicks are interchangeable should be a clue. I am, indeed, a woman. Now if I wanted to, I could probably identify as transgendered with no intention of getting any operations, but I just don't see myself that way, so I don't. I don't feel like a man trapped in a woman's body. I'm just a butch dyke who likes to play in guy headspace. Though if my tits fell off tomorrow, I really wouldn't miss them. They just get in my way and they're not sensitive in a fun way at all.

Second, Rachel, whose URL doesn't work, wants to know how many lovers do I have. Please turn to page 3 in your programs. But seriously, my family comprises two couples, all of us women. My primary partner is Deb, my lover is Sara. Sara's primary partner is Jake. Jake's lover is Deb. Way back when, I used to be lovers with Jake, too, but not anymore.

Everyone who said they love me-slash-want me in my guestbook should be expecting a private e-mail soon.