bigtips

What do you call the person

October 25, 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

KATE

you've spent 30 years with? CLINTON

by M.T. 'the Big Tipper' Martone

Dear Big Tipper,

Yesterday my father asked me what my girlfriend and I actually call each other. Life partner? I told him that sounded a little heavy, and that we usually just go with "partner," but it made me realize that no one really has ever come up with a good answer for this one. What do you think? Girlfriend/Partner/Lover

Dear Main Squeeze,

There's always "old lady” which I've always thought sounded very Robert Crumb. I'm thinking that I don't trust the "lesbigay” community to come up

with an elegant solution to this one, since they're the ones responsible for "lesbigay." And

"LGBT" everything, which sounds more like something you'd have on wheat toast than use as a signifier of your sexual orientation.

You're right: "Partner" sounds like someone you'd swing at a square dance or sit next to at a board meeting. "Girlfriend" seems a little light for someone you've spent the last thirty years with. And

"wife" is just a little too Wilma Flintstone to my taste, no matter how firmly your tongue is planted in your cheek when you use it.

I think this is one of those situations in which you pick something that's as close to right as you can find, and let it grow on you and become the right thing for you as time passes. Just like your partner.

Dear Big Tipper,

I work at a store with these two cute boys who so obviously have it bad and hard for each other. Of course neither one of them has said anything because they're both totally tragically damaged and fearful. I know I should butt out, but don't you really think if it's meant to be, then I should drop some hints to each of them and help them get it going?

Dear Bow and Error,

Cupida

Yes, technically, you should butt out. But how close are they to you? If you are good friends with one or both of them, that's what friends are for: to badger them with the possibility of sex that may or may not ever actually manifest itself.

Go to town. If they can't handle hearing it, they'll tell you to shut up. Just be prepared to have to listen to more whining about disappointment and heartache if nothing happens or it all blows up, and yeah, it'll be your fault. But you had the thrill of telling them.

Dear Big Tipper,

Simple problem: I think fart jokes are high-sterical. My boyfriend does not, and gets a cat-butt face whenever I lapse. Will you tell him that gas is just one of the funniest things ever?

Dear Full Tank,

Windbag

I want to be there (but not too close) for you, but I'm one of those curmudgeons who can't quite go there with the gas jokes. I don't know where I failed, or if I have some tragic short-circuit in the seventh-grade-boy zone

in my brain. I'm not grossed out, I'm just not amused.

Lately, though, the same goes for period humor, so maybe I'm just getting old and confused by whatever it is that those darned kids today think is funny.

I have noticed, though, that it is even harder to contain gas jokes and those who find them funny than it is to contain that which they address, so your boyfriend will probably need to suck it up when you let them rip. Try to show some compassion.

Dear Big Tipper,

If someone invited you to their house, and if they told you they were making dinner, and if they put a bowl of boiled potatoes in front of you at dinner time, would you be offended?

BIG TIPS

Boiling Mad

Dear You Say Potato,

If someone invited me to dinner, and if they had boiled potatoes to serve me and they did so, I would be grateful, ask for a bit

of butter and salt and dig in.

If there were something more specific going on, it would help me to respond if I had

some more of those details.

If you feel like offense was intended, being gracious can be a nice way of showing someone that they're wasting their time trying to get your goat. If you just think you deserve something fancier for dinner than what you got, shame on you.

Dear Big Tipper,

I ran out of dish soap the other day, and used shampoo to wash the dishes. My housemate seemed to think that was completely mental, and couldn't possibly do the job. I say soap is soap. What's the truth? In a Lather

Dear It's No Lye,

Boys, girls, etc., let us hearken back to the days when we had to make a liquid solution of potash and sweeten our rancid cooking grease to just begin the process of producing something with which we could wash our sullied hands, laundry, and pots and pans.

Yea, progress is good, because it keeps the tallow rendering out of my kitchen, but somewhere in the soap aisle at Safeway, things got a little nutty. So nutty, there needed to be more than one soap aisle.

Cleaner differentiation has a heck of a lot more to do with the money that can be made off of your greasy scalp than the chemical differences of the products. One of my favorite Consumer Reports articles said that the best way to pick a shampoo was to take the caps off and sniff them until you find a smell you like, because that's the most dramatic variable. It's almost all spin.

That said, I just can't use Doctor Bronner's for everything (as special as the peppermint can make me feel in places). I like whatever it is they put in shampoo to keep my hair from being too squeaky. But feel free to use shampoo in your kitchen sink. As long as it's breaking up grease on your head, it'll break it up on your dishes.

Send questions to the Chronicle, attention' Big Tips, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland 44101, online at www.bigtipsonline.com, e-mail to martone@drizzle.com or fax to 216-

631-1052.

WITH ROY ZIMMERMAN

NOV. 9, 2002 8PM OHIO THEATRE

Kate Clinton is one of America's best and brightest political comedians. This humorist/monologist's agenda includes political material as fresh as the daily news, savvy send-ups of modern family relationships and illuminating perspectives on life as a gay American. Kate's first book Don't Get Me Started was based on past and present monologues, and is filled with thoughts both insightful and riotous. She has written for the New York Times and George magazine among others. Kate served as a writer on the Rosie O'Donnell Show during its roll-out period in 1996. Single tickets: $25.50 & $19.50

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