Eventful evening.
So my Grandmother Hutchinson, who is a lot older than the other grandparents, has a wicked bad case of Alzheimers. No one is really very close with her, but it is sad. Today, I get a birthday card in the mail addressed to me on the outside in foreign handwriting. On the inside, my grandma barely scratche out "Have a blessed birthday Brent." And there was a more-than-required sum of cash. Upon further investigation, my dad told me that the nursing home she's at has all the family members' birthdays written down, and they get the cards for the patients and have them sign them. It's really surprising and sweet, except Brent is my cousin who died before I was born. So that's weird.
With his mom being sick, my dad's being really solemn and reserved lately. This weekend, my stepmother told me that he said recently his biggest problem with me being gay is the "family legacy." There's only one other boy in my family with the actual Hutchinson name; every other one was born to one of my aunts. And my cousin Michael is a total loser who nobody wants breeding. Apparently there's been much discussion, I'm hoping only half serious, amongst my aunts and uncles about my future responsibility to have as many kids as possible to carry on the name. Nobody outside my immediate family on that side knows I'm gay because I'm not very close with them, and my father refuses to pass on the info.
I can't tell if that's funny ha-ha, or funny terrifying.
Also, speaking of gay, gay, gay-- I bought the 2-disc release of The Little Mermaid today and watched it. You notice a lot more once you're older. Everyone jokes about the sexuality in Disney movies, but goddamn! Ursuala's boobs are practically characters in the movie. And there's a lot of racist undertone. All the lower-end bottom-dwelling sea creatures all sound black.
I'll end by just saying: Thank God for John Waters. He's on the second disc commentary. I haven't gotten through all of it yet, but so far it's hilarious. Apparently Ursula was based off Divine. Maybe that's common knowledge, but it's news to me. First Mommie Dearest and now Disney classsics. I think DVD commentary should be his fulltime job.