My Christmas list.

I've been making a list, checking it twice, and trying to be nice. But I find I'm a quart low on estrogen and thinking about getting a gun.

This is the penultimate holiday shopping season of the Gay '90s. What to get my gay and straight family with less than 13 months left until the year 2000? Incidentally, my hipper friends tell me I'm supposed to call it Y2K--Y (year) 2 (2) K (thousand). One of my mildly dyslexic gay men friends thought I said "2KY." "Two tubes of K-Y? Let the millennium begin! Is that ball going down that pole awfully fast, or is it me?"

I've been making a list, checking it twice, and, as always, trying to be nice. As I get older, however, I find I'm a quart low on estrogen and thinking about getting a gun. My partial Christmas list:

An Olivia cruise

for Anne Paulk, the Exodus International poster girl and so-called "former lesbian." She just hasn't met the right woman. Annie, it's time to have some fun and go cruising. (Please note: Olivia's aqua separatists are girlcotting Alaska and Hawaii since those electorates voted down same-sex marriage. The Alaska "KlonDykes Tour" and Hawaii's "Let's Get Lei'ed Tour" are no longer available.)

New stationery

for the Human Rights Campaign, which claimed to be single-mindedly focused on gay and lesbian issues when it endorsed New York's Al "Right to Life Party" D'Amato for reelection to the U.S. Senate. The stationery features the group's new name, the Gay and Lesbian Rights Campaign, and replaces the equal sign with the division sign. My fondest hope is that it will throw its weight behind Trent Lott and Jesse Helms in future elections.

New stationery

for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which will take a position on anything from welfare reform to the Persian Gulf to school uniforms and should therefore be renamed the Human Rights Task Force. They get an embossed multiplication sign.

Androstenedione 

for Nathan Lane. Look how it helped Mark McGwire's career! The redheaded batting champ broke Roger Maris's home-run record with the help of the steroid-based muscle builder. Nathan's one-year supply also comes with a carton of Viagra. Encore!

Her surgeon general Job back

for Joycelyn Elders. Talk is cheap. There are apologies, and then there is action. President Clinton should show he means he's sorry and reinstate Elders; then she could give him a little talking to about not using condoms--what kind of message is that to send?

Front-row seats to the all-male Swan Lake

for Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council. Talk about your schwing vote: His ticket comes with mandatory seat/chastity belt. Although I'm still mad at Swan Lake's director, who didn't need to say in an interview, "If I had used female dancers, I would have found it very difficult to do anything original." How about Corpus Christi, a theatrical sacrilege, with an all-chick cast? Call it Julie Christie.

Term limits

for Geraldo Rivera, Cokie Roberts, George Stayontopofthis, George Will, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Larry King Sort of Live, and other members of the impeachment industry who refused to quit using the i word, then got mad at the public for getting tired of it, then told us we weren't going to vote, then got mad at us for voting.

And another thing. Don't send me those E-mail chain letters--I'm the weak link, the end of the line, the culde-sacko, the buck stopper. Or that one about the virus, then the one about the virus hoax. The biggest virus I'm worried about is the Goverly Love Bush brothers. They're scarier than the Baldwin boys. Out of the chat rooms! Into the streets!

And, of course, for each and every one of the American people, my new CD, Comedy You Can Dance To, and book, Don't Get Me Started. We could use a few laughs.