W hat M akes a Gay S o u l? Tacky tabby An Educational Support Group for Gay Men on A Spiritual Journey. Monday Evenings in February and March. K« .) LESBIANS ) ENJOYING THE SCIENCES Men’s Weekend Retreat Friday Evening February 11th and Saturday February 12. S ool Salon: Weekly Interfaith Spirituality Group. Thursday Evenings in April and May. Pre-registration required for all programs. For information call: DATE: 1/22/99 TIME: 6PM-9PM PLACE: Call 289-3605 Dale Rhodes, M.S., M J L NEWCOMERS IMVTTTDf i Mo Spiritual Director Interfafth Spiritual Center 3910 Southeast 11th Ave. Portland, OR 97202 (503) 289-4103 Djrho5@ aol.com tr ia n g le > the K athy & P arallel L ives X S how : January 12 - February 6,2000 Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays by Kathy Najimy & Mo Gaffney The Millennium begins with laughs. Valory Lawrence and Karen Boettcher-Tate star. Meet the Angels, Hank and Karen Sue, Gina and Annette, and the rest of the wacky characters that make up the “parallel liveg' of Kathy & Mo. 3430 SE Belmont Portland, OR 97214 Box Office: 503/239-5919 ■ Email: trianglepro@juno.com Web site: www.tripro.org “You're looking very very pretty tonite. Call for tickets 503 . 274.6588 Tickets also through Ticketraaster 503.790.ARTS Show your transfer at the box office and get a free ride home from Tri-Met! w w w . p c s . o r g A classic American love stor J a n u a r y ’ 1 5 — FEBRUARY 1 2 , 2 0 0 0 GALA* N i g h t J a n u a r y 2 5 * Gay and Lesbian Audience series » ■■ kevBank iu s t n r n i J I he Mark S p rn rrr Hotel merrill CORPORATION AmericanAirHnes Catty observations about compulsive shopping ast year I was poking around an antique shop in town looking for a gift when I saw it. High on a shelf, fire-engine red, unlovely, forgotten— the red cat. I turned away, appalled. How could anyone create such a tasteless insult to feline beauty? Yet my eyes were drawn back again and again from the flower-patterned cham­ ber pots, the iron door stops, the huddles of blue glass on old maple highboys. I bought the red cat. «flUBÉa If I’d left that red cat behind, life as I knew it would have gone on. Instead, I set it on a shelf and grew to love the thing. How many more objets de non-art out there depicted cats? Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Tacky Cat Collection? Poor Lover. How was she to know when we got together that my addictive nature would take this form. How was I to know? For a while I hit that same shop J monthly. Then I branched out to —— r another a few miles away. (I didn’t want anyone to know I was out of control.) Bingo, another kitty col­ lectible. Meanwhile, Lover— inadver­ tently and to her subsequent dismay— thought to please me with little surprises from her favorite antique shop. Every time she stopped, she’d bring home another deliciously tacky cat. Except they weren’t so tacky any more. They’d become too appealing. Maybe, I decid­ ed, it’s the concept of collecting cat fig­ urines that’s tacky. I remember all the old women of my childhood who set porcelain figurines of clowns and birds and chil­ dren on doilies ______ ^ inside glass cabinets. Or } J women of my generation with our political pins or crystals or stuffed ani­ mals. Ah, I’m just a late-blooming collector. Except for old books, that is. And miniature toy vehicles. In any case, once I received Lover’s unintentional blessing, I was lost. Any­ thing was fair game. 1 now have a Cheshire Cat grinning from the bathroom wall, a crouching blue-eyed kitty under the chair by the hearth, several figurines prancing across my dresser, a cat clock on my desk, a shelf full of minia­ tures and several more shelves full of wood, glass, porcelain and ceramic cats. It’s been a challenging year. Not to find all the little guys, hut to do anything other than look for them. The temptations go well beyond antique shops. As a matter of fact, I stay out of those— they’re way overpriced. We went to a junk shop up north with friends, and one of them proudly revealed her find for me: a home­ made, two foot tall, sitting, putrid-green cat. It L BY LE LYN CH is truly tacky and resides next to the roly-poly papier-mach£ tuxedoed cat, which is adorned with a rhinestone tie pin and cigar. People are weird. Weird enough to think anyone would bid for such items in online auc­ tions. But the prices! T he oddities! The adorability quotient! I am convinced that I single-handedly drove up the price of cat figurines within a month of discovering eBay, partly because I didn’t understand how some auctions worked. In between bidding on cat statuettes, I managed to purchase a new computer by mistake. Luckily, it was a good deal. Soon, what with increasing numbers of gifts and exciting finds, I began to run out of shelv­ ing, and floor space, and windowsills and book­ shelves. Lover suggested 1 purchase a C D case, one of those stand up jobs with multiple shelves. That soon filled up. Then an eBay auction yielded the first three miniatures. Definitely the cutest doodads I’ve ever seen, with their pastel painted clothing and tiny detailing. This was the answer to the space problem! I’d only collect miniature domestic felines. Alas, other compulsives hap­ pened on that solution. Miniature cats are diffi­ cult to find, and the bidding is fierce at the auction sites. It’s hard to win an auction when, like me, the buyer has a $3 price ceiling. I found new miniatures in a gift shop in New Hampshire last fall that were a better buy. And, after an extensive wrapping session, flew them home. Then last weekend, when 1 was buying some fabric at Wal-Mart (we don’t have a fab­ ric store nearby), I passed the button rack. There I saw a pair of cat-shaped buttons. They were smaller than the smallest figurines. They were hand-painted. They were under $3. In the blink of an eye, I had a new fever. I’d microspecialize! Kitty buttons don’t take up much space at all. If I avoid brass and pewter, fabric-covered and large, I’ll reclaim that feeling of being challenged and we won’t be crowded out of our house. If I can learn to resist every red, putrid-green and pastel cat figurine I see. But— will buttons be tacky enough? I L ee L ynch is a novelist who lives on the Oregon coast.