me kissing Jane

This is the fabulous Jane Weiner. She is the president and CEO of the fabulous Hope Stone Inc. There's a lot of fabulosity swirling around her.

Jane had a fabulous (last one, I promise) career as a dancer in New York with the Doug Elkins Dance Company---which sounds like her career is over, but of course it's not. She moved to Houston and set to work building up Hope Stone, which has a full schedule of dance classes for all ages as well as a professional dance company. I don't know how you'd measure such things, but she's got to have one of the more active dance lives in Houston.

I posted on facebook recently that I'm always a bit surprised when I mention Hope Stone to a Houstonian and they don't know what I'm talking about. Intellectually I know that dance is one of the least recognized (and funded) art forms in contemporary culture, and yet, Hope Stone does so much. Go to their website and see. And then go see a performance. You should know Hope Stone, wherever you are, but especially if you're in Houston.

Oh, and I just noticed that Jane is my 50th kiss! Huh. You'd think there'd be a prize to go with that, but I guess not.

me kissing Susan

This is Susan. I only just met her at the Photobooth on Montrose. All I really know about her is that she's an actor, writer, dancer . . . and that she rocks a pair of red, knee-high boots. And that maybe we should talk about some collaborative efforts. I can't see the future and we just met. (That should be a line in a song, yes?)

I should also mention that this photo was taken by Simon Gentry, proprietor of the Photobooth on Montrose. As you'll see throughout this blog, it's not really a photography blog so much as a kissing blog, and so the photos all kinds of amateur snapshot kind of things. Simon couldn't stand it, though. He took hold of my little pocket digital camera and took this (and the next two entries) saying,  "This is how you take a picture of a kiss."

So here you go, a professionally shot kiss with an amateur camera.

me kissing Jay

This is Jay Mays. I'd met her before, too. She's active in the Houston LGBT community and is a performer as well as an activist.

One project that she's been very involved in is called The Gender Book. It's a brief educational book intended as a primer for exploring all the ways gender is expressed. It's not a simple binary of boy and girl, no matter what some people might try to tell you.

Another one of her projects is the Houston Gendermyn, who perform here and there, now and then. At lunch she mentioned her Dorothy Hamill haircut, which I said was super cute. She then admitted that it also doubles for when she does drag as Justin Bieber. I might find that less super cute, but then I've yet to catch that show. If anyone could make Justin cute, it would be Jay.

me kissing Amy

This is Amy. I met her once before today, so this isn't one of the "hi, here we are at lunch, want a kiss?" photos. Some people have to ease into this whole getting kissed by a big fuzzy guy thing. And, as I hope I've made abundantly clear by now, I don't guerrilla kiss.

Amy is going to seminary. I told her it was a great experience for me, but also the weirdest place I'd ever been. I told her a story or two. She seems unswayed. Must be a call from God.

Of course, I didn't tell her all the stories . . . but there's really no preparation for it. I can tell she'll do well. Weirdness and all.

(Also: I love how our shirts match.)

me kissing Karen

Meet Karen. I just did. And I kissed her.

She was also at the lunch where I knew only half the people. Funny thing, she didn't know anyone. She'd visited at Grace Lutheran Church that morning, where most of the people had been that morning (not me---I'd been at another church) and had kind of got caught in the tide of people going to lunch together.

Oh those church people. You gotta watch 'em every second.

What was super cool about Karen is that she gave me a ride to the Galleria after lunch. I, who rely on Metro and the kindness of strangers, enjoyed a chat with Karen while driving down Westheimer. Very nice individual, but you can probably tell that by the fact that she went to lunch with a bunch of strangers and then let on of them kiss her while she winked.

In my book, that's the sign of quality people. I hope our paths cross again.

me kissing Hazard

This is Hazard Buck Jacobs. She has a lemon in her mouth. I just met her, so i can't explain further than that.

Honestly, I was at lunch with several people and knew only about half of them, but it was a bit of a rowdy crowd and so I just said, "okay, this is a kissing sort of gathering." So I got out my camera and asked who I could kiss. Someone had the internet in their pocket (I think they're called "smart phones?") and looked up my blog and then everyone I hadn't already kissed got on board.

This is how life is supposed to be. Lemons and all.

me kissing Megan

Megan Rohrer is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's first transgendered ordained pastor. So if you're Lutheran and queer, you've probably come across the name before.

Living in San Francisco, Megan came a long way to be kissed by me. Not that Megan knew that was the reason for the trip. As the keynote speaker for the annual Houston Transgender Unity Banquet, I'm sure Megan had other priorities in mind. Whatever. I'm still giving Megan a kiss of peace, to take back to San Francisco.

Megan's main ministry is to the homeless population of San Francisco. In anticipation of the the Unity Banquet, I interviewed Megan for Houston's OutSmart magazine, so learn more about that ministry by clicking here.