It Takes A Village, People

Ah, yes. It takes a village to raise a child and in my case, The Village People. Not exactly the band, but you know what I mean...

A couple months ago, something rather unexpected happened. My ol' man was hired to produce an all gay talk show for an all gay network.

His raise enabled us to move to our current pad and he comes home every night with stories galories, hot celeb gossip and plenty of insight into the world of man on man action. My manly man of a husband has become a manly man with more skin product than I have (all freebies) and more scrutiny when it comes to an actress' hairstyle than moi.

For example:

"Her hair looks fucking awful."
"What?"
"Yeah. Can you see that (pauses the DVD) right there. Yeah. That's bad."

Not that there is anything wrong with this and don't get me wrong, I love the gays. More than 99% of most straights. Gays rule.


My best friend is a Gay man. His name is Frank. We lived together for two years before the pee-on-stick-eight-hundred-times-incident when I moved out and in with my then husband to be. Frank is a great guy and a true blue friend. He is the kind of friend that will drop everything to help with even the most mundane task and is happy to do so. He is the kind of man that will pick a fight with an asshole in the parking lot of Ralphs, even if that asshole was three times his size, if say, that asshole were to lay an inappropriate hand on me. Frank was the man in my life for many years and without him, I might be dead in a gutter somewhere, or worse.

When Archer was born, Frank cried. When we brought Archer home, Frank came over with bags full of diapers, looked at Archer and cried again. Five months later, Uncle Frank is very much in my life and in Archer's and the fam is lucky to have him.

Frank has been around a lot lately, helping keep me sane with all of the moving, shopping, stress that comes with the whole, new house, new life thing.

The other day while shopping I overheard Frank pointing out hair products to Archer.

"And this is called ____ product. Very important."
"What are you doing?"
"Just teaching Archer the ways of the world: beauty, beauty, beauty!"
"I see."

We proceeded to walk the isles and Frank proceeded to teach Archer about Creme de la Mer and exfoliant. Archer stared blankly, drooling on Frank's Prada manpurse and kicked his little legs.

Frank helped Archer up and gave him an Eskimo kiss. "When you get a little bit older, Uncle Frank is going to take you to get your very first eyebrow wax!"

And the record stopped.

"What did you say?"
"His eyebrow wax? The boy will need one eventually."
"Ahem, Frank?"

And that wasn't all. Just the other day, Frank was commenting on all of the mirrors in Archer's bedroom, in his crib, on his mobile.

"Vanity, Archer! Vanity, vanity, vanity!!!"

"Not really. He just likes looking at his reflection."
Frank turned to Archer "Good for you!!!" And then he turned to me "Vanity!" he smiled.

I wonder if the whole vanity, eyebrow waxing, introduction of products will have any long term effect on the kid. I read Archer books. My ol' man plays games with him. Frank teaches Arch about skin care and vanity. Fair enough.

Now mind you, I work full time from home with NO interaction besides Archer, ol' man and Frank. A boy that doesn't speak and two boys that know more about pop culture and fashion trends than I do. (and I know a lot.) A man who carries the gay gene and a man so saturated in gaydom that we have Chippendale calendars filling the junk drawers of our house and invitations on our fridge for ever gay mixer in the greater Los Angeles area.

With the Gay Network paying for our bills and making it possible for Archer to have his own room, and Frank's helping hand, the fam is completely dependent on the Macho, Macho men of the YMCA.

Ah yes, a village, people. A village.

GGC