My Big Gay Brother (not that there's anything wrong with that)

And not that he's really gay.

He emailed me some digital pictures of his latest vacation with his wife and their friends. Good, normal vacation pictures. What somewhat stopped me, though, were the pictures of my brother in the pink polos.

I'm for gay rights more than most. I believe all gay couples deserve the same rights as married couples. We let people destroy their lives with drugs and alcohol. It does not matter if you are gay or straight; anyone (any race, gender, sexuality) can become a drug-addicted alcoholic. My point? Marriage should be the same way. If you want to destroy your life without the use of substances, then anyone should be able to get married.

Back to my brother in the pretty pink polos. He's not gay. He's quite married, and quite heterosexual. I know this, though, because I know my brother. He dislikes reading, gets bored by art, and is a slob. He's straight. But the pretty pink polo says, "Hey sailor, how long you in town for?!" even more than a clean-shaven, pierce-tongued man dressed in a rainbow shirt and white Birkenstock sandals screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'm gay! Gay, gay, gay!! I shop at Ikea and drive a Subaru!"

Hm.

A mystery, right?

Perhaps he doesn't know. I know he likes polos. Is he perhaps colorblind? No. He's not colorblind. Maybe he just likes pink.

But a boy that likes pink? Oh, shit. We're right back to square one. Boys don't like pink. That's a girl's color. So why's he wearing pink polos?

And let's get back to gay rights. How can anyone discriminate against people just because of their sexual orientation? That's why God gave everyone a race, gender, and nationality to discriminate against. I hate hearing someone being called a fag. I would totally support a gay man yelling out racist or nationalistic epithets, though.

Okay, let's return to the pink polo. Pink. Maybe it was on sale. In fact, knowing my brother and our shared sense of cheapness (hint: shalom), it had to be on sale.

Arizona's great, by the way. And thanks for asking. Not that anybody did. It's hot here. As in, so hot that I felt my organs cooking inside my body today. That was so strange. I swear, everyone felt like it was actually heating up from the inside out. God's own convection oven.

I go back on Monday. Returning to LA is akin to charting a course across the Pacific Ocean--but probably more difficult. Traffic is the enemy. If I leave too early, I'll hit lunch traffic. If I leave too late to go home, I'll hit the returning-from-vacation traffic. Not only that, but there's my freeway choices:
1) The 10 to the 605 up to the 210 west to Pasadena?
2) The 10 to the 15 up to the 210?
3) The 10 to the 215 up to San Bernardino, to the road that turns into the 210?
4) The 10 out to El Monte, and then take a variety of surface streets to get home?
5) Ditch the car and walk?!
This is what I think about. Others think about the meaning of life. Others think about society, books, other people, good jokes, funny stories, the universe. I think about how I'm going to make it through traffic to get home. Because if you choose incorrectly, you'll be trapped in traffic...FOREVER.