sundries

[rm]

Last night my father sent me an email about my paper. Despite my specifically stating that I did not want this to devolve into a judgmental conversation about psychology and god, guess what's happening? And he's not even done yet. I have to respond to his letter today, which is, in many ways, incredibly kind, supportive and gracious. But I loathe "I know you asked me not to do X, but I am going to do it anyway." There's only one reason that happens, and it's not a pleasant one.¹

Am totally submitting a proposal for the academic con at Dragon*Con, just have to write in on paper instead of my head. Tried last night, did laundry and took a nap instead.

The oil spill, one month later. ONE MONTH. OIL STILL SPILLING.

Something is happening on DADT today, but what it is, no one is sure. Not only do we not know how the vote is going to go, we're not even sure what the repeal means, as one thing that's being floated is that repeal will merely transfer power to decide this issue back to the Pentagon, and in fact bring us no closer to allowing the gay men and lesbians already fighting and dying for our country to do so openly. Keep an eye on this, as it may be one of those things that gets worse before it gets better. ETA: post with language on this and analysis, in short: "we'll discuss the potential negative impact of homosexuals forever and never fix anything" seems to be a pretty good interpretation of what's up.

Mississippi school denies prom was fake.

The Warren Cup was once banned from American museums because it features explicit sex acts between men. NSFW if classical art is a problem.

Anyone possibly toying with doing scholarship on RPF (or just wants a handy thing to talk about in relation to its existence), should check out this post immediately. via brewsternorth on Twitter.

Last night on Angel and Buffy: Gunn is sort of a dick in terms of getting how to have a relationship and get your damn job done. Also, him and Fred? Paranoid much? Wesley's behaving pretty well; not perfectly, but pretty well. Also, OMG, Hamburger Drive Through Oracle! Paired with the Buffy fast food episode. LOVE. The Earthquake, Fire, Blood has just happened and Angel has made his cryptic remark about a snack and that's all we saw last night.

Meanwhile, annoying Willow plotline continues to be annoying. Seriously, how did we go from "magic is an ethically grey area that can lead to toxic adventures with dark dark things" to "spells don't really do shit other than make you feel good, it's your birthday!"

---

¹When I first dyed my hair black when I was 15 and spending the summer taking classes at Yale, my father got very angry, despite the fact that black hair isn't all that different from my natural color. In the ensuing argument, I used the Angry Teen Strategy of Petulant Kids Everywhere, and said "It's my hair!" My father replied "No, it's not." I have lived every moment of my life since then understanding, rightly or wrongly, that he considers me his property.

Comments

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

From the NYTimes article:

It has even announced its arrival on the Louisiana coast with a fittingly ugly symbol: brown pelicans, the state bird, dyed with crude.

::sob::

This is so awful, and it keeps getting worse.

[themaskmaker.livejournal.com]

Regarding your footnote: Oh, yes. I remember my father doing something very similar. And over hair, too. I remember thinking, "I need to leave home as soon as possible."

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble processing that whole hair story. I'm not sure what to say. Ouch? Sorry?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Better or worse that I've already received multiple private messages that were "me too"?

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the Drive-Tru Oracle! That made me laugh so much.

As for the Willow plotline ... don't worry, it gets better, in my opinion. There's that mini arc of anvilicious magical stupidness, but I'm pretty sure you're on the last episode of that shit. It's much improved from there on, in my opinion. :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I have a love hate relationship with my hair for this very reason. It wasn't so much that my mom was/is possessive about my hair, it was that she used/uses it to manipulate me and guilt me about my body image.

Gah.

[graene.livejournal.com]

Yes, that. She was so thrilled I didn't get her nose and look Jewish, but then dragged me in for perm after perm in elementary school because I didn't look Jewish enough. Uhm? And after I lost it, well...

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Your DADT article's from before last night, when word came out that something billed as a 'compromise' had been worked out, and it was now expected that repeal would pass. If I'm reading it correctly, it's a scare-quotes compromise because while it contains a provision for Defense to complete its review/study before the repeal goes into effect, that would have had to happen anyway -- there was always going to be a phase-in period. So this is looking like a mere face-saver for the opposition, and an all-around Good Thing.

Benen has more on the details here.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

I feel like the only person who doesn't like this "compromise", because it's just giving cover to the politicians by saying that the military can put off the change indefinitely if they choose to, when all indications are that they will choose to. Maybe Congressional approval is a step in this process (although I can't follow the logic enough to know if it actually is), but I am NOT going to be a happy camper when President Obama flies the Mission Accomplished banner when the bill is passed. It isn't passed until DADT is dead, and that isn't going to happen before he finds the will to act like the Commander-in-Chief and TELL the generals what to do.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

If your dad wants to believe he's an old Roman paterfamilias, you might point out that you've lived more than a full year without spending a night under his roof. Thus, by Roman law, you're an emancipated adult woman, and can conduct your own affairs without your father's approval.

(And yeah, I realize that telling him this probably wouldn't be helpful. I just wanted to point out that even 2000 years ago you wouldn't have had to put up with this.)

[teh_ace.livejournal.com]

Wow. I just watched the last episode of Rome yesterday and it's scary, the way a free man had legal right to do whatever he wanted, as long as it wasn't towards another free man. And this hasn't changed all that recently here, nor all that much in some parts of the world.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

OMG! I also dyed my hair black as a teenager when it was already about as close to pure black as most natural hair colors can be. I recall my dad throwing a fit, telling me I looked liked a hooker, and ordering me to "wash it out." Needless, to say it was permanent. I laugh now. Easy enough more than 40 years later.

[rm.livejournal.com]

When I pierced my eyebrow my dad told me I was "just like Patty Hearst."

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

My dad didn't consider me his property (as far as I know), but anything in the house was "his".

He used to take my bike without asking me, and wouldn't stop when I asked him not to. So I started locking it up. He demanded the key, and I refused to give it to him. He was furious, because how dare I lock up "his" bike? He considered it his property because he claimed he had paid for it. Except that he hadn't paid for it-- I had bought it with my own money, which I had earned at my own job. (Didn't count, though. That money was "his", too.)

That argument went on for an entire summer, and that incident, which happened when I was about 17, has coloured our entire relationship since. We stopped really being friends, and over the years things have gotten very chilly between us. Because it really wasn't about the bike. That's when I realized he didn't respect my privacy, my property, my opinions or me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There was an incident when I was in college, when I brought a male friend home for Thanskgiving because he could not afford to fly home to the west coast and my parents rescinded their invitation for him to say on our couch after we arrived because "he's too thin and must be gay and we don't want that for you." No matter how much my parents have seriously, seriously mellowed and we get along pretty good now, that happened, and it's never going to unhappen and it hangs between us a lot.

[elisi]

Also, OMG, Hamburger Drive Through Oracle!
\o/ That is one of my favourite things EVER!!! How it manages to be both ridiculous and deeply unsettling at the same time still amazes me.

Damn, you're in for treats (deep, dark, excellent episodes) on both shows now!

And re. the DADT repeal then Sullivan has links and thoughts.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

Oh...oh Wesley! God, I might just watch these next few episodes with you!

I hear stories about hair like this, and want my parents to retroactively adopt everyone. Of course, I didn't do unnatural colors until I hit 40, at which point I said "Fuck it, it is never going to happen any sooner" and got electric blue streaks. I miss them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

done

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

When I shaved my head in 2006, my Mom announced that there was nothing left that I could do that would shock her. EVER. Of all the things...

Strangely enough, thus far not-shocking has proved to be the case. But you never know. It may take me a while to live up to the heights of my teenage insanity.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

This sounds like a challenge

*hands you fireworks, a large turkey and the cast of Cats*

[mzlizzy.livejournal.com]

Re: the Warren Cup

I have to laugh at the fact that a major piece like this was considered to explicit and rude for display. There are so many pieces of ancient art that are kept off display for fear of offending someone. My favorite is the Roman Brothel Tokens that are found anywhere the Roman army settled in. Coins with a sexual position on one side and a number on the other side allowing communication between prostitute and client who didn't have a common language.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

*wonders if LIIX was the number for mutually-assured oral intercourse*

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

The Willow "magic addiction" plotline is incredibly stupid. There seems to be an opinion in fandom these days that if you don't like season six, you're just not cool enough to like dark, edgy storytelling, but actually I think not liking season six has more to do with not liking preachy, inconsistent, badly written storytelling.

OTOH, "Dead Things" (6x13) is coming up (next?) for you, which is quite possibly the last really well-written episode of BtVS. (Much as it offends me in retrospect because they fail to deal with the consequences of it.)

My mom helped me dye my hair black when I was a teenager; my dad didn't care, but since that was part of his "pretending I didn't exist for my entire teenage years" issue, it might not have been a good thing. Meanwhile my friend Joe's mom tried to perform an exorcism on him after I dyed his hair black.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

The oil spill is one of those things that makes me frustrated that the world is not an action movie, and that BP is not like the Alliance, and that I am not Malcom Reynolds.

Because, you know, I'd brave Reavers to get the holotape that proves the badness and then kick some serious ass in order to bring those fuckers down. I'd even do the painful looking Star Wars homage fight scene with the nerve punches and bloody nose if it would fix something.

That there is no singular ass I can kick or thing I can do to fix this is horribly frustrating. I'm not surprised a lot of people feel powerless about this. Fuck.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

I cope with amusing myself over the irony of seeing politicians who complained about financial aid that was given to banks and the auto industry now upset that the Obama Admin isn't stepping in more with this mess.

And yes, I am looking right at you, Gov. Bobby "Volcano Monitoring is Silly" Jindal...

[gracilejenn.livejournal.com]

I must be in the minority, because my parents didn't care what I did with my hair. They always said, "It's only hair. It will grow back."

Of course, they were controlling about other issues, so maybe they were just picking their battles?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

The only time my dad ever said anything other than "It looks pretty good" was when the toner processed wrong and I got Easter Egg Pink instead of blonde. He asked my mother, who had done the coloring, "Was it supposed to be that color?" She said "Nope, bad batch." He shrugged and said "It'll grow out."

My folks were controlling in other ways, mostly morality, propriety and Keeping Up Appearances.

My daughter? went to prom with royal blue hair.

[introductory.livejournal.com]

I spent a week-long vacation from school this past year without a laptop, phone, or music player -- all because I had somehow offended my father, and this gave him a right to take back the things he had bought for me.

He also buys the family's food. It was a hard week.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, annoying Willow plotline continues to be annoying. Seriously, how did we go from "magic is an ethically grey area that can lead to toxic adventures with dark dark things" to "spells don't really do shit other than make you feel good, it's your birthday!"

i basically wrote 6K words on that for a college class, but in the end it's still super lame. At least you can speed through that plotline quickly, spending weeks and weeks on it in real time *sucked*

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Sort of ning the statement about "dad sees me as property". It wasn't as bad as all that (though he did freak out when he found out I got my navel pierced), but he seemed to have a very hard time wrapping his head around the notion that I wasn't just like him.

I remember him getting upset with me over my math because "I'm good at it, why aren't you?" And he was not hostile but certainly speechless when I told him I wasn't in a great rush to get married and never wanted children.

[sanat.livejournal.com]

Dyeing my hair was the only rebellion in which I felt secure in ignoring my parents' whining. I am only recognizing years later how vastly inappropriate they both were about respecting my boundaries, in other ways.

Like five years ago when I got some scantily-clad boudoir photos done for my DH's birthday, and showed them to my mom for a giggle.

Mom: "Oh wow, Annie, you look great!" (Beat.) "Make me a copy of one."

Me: o.O "Mom, no!"

Mom: "Hey, I MADE half of that." :indicating the half-nude photo:

I still refused, thank gods. I think that was probably the turning point, whereafter I didn't share much else with her.

And yes, my shrink had a field day with that anecdote.

[axeslade.livejournal.com]

While my father has only lightly teased about my various adventures with hair colour (usually when it's gone a bit differently than planned), he goes insanely overboard about the cutting. I first had my hair cut (besides trimming split ends etc) when I was 7th grade and just starting to come to terms with my gender crap. Ever since, he's been whining about why don't I grow it out, I look so much better with long hair, I'm just making my cowlicks worse, etc. And, not-so-lovingly really, calls me Butch. Really fun on the occasions when I can't get/afford to get it done by anyone but him and he just *won't* cut it any shorter because *he* hates it that way.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

I realize how lucky I am not to have had my biofather around when I read anecdotes like those shared here. (Long story why he wasn't around, including his death when I was 7.)

(My mom, OTOH, is a piece of work, but that's another day.)

I'm so sorry all of you had to deal with this crap.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

"Just how was sexuality viewed at this time, and why were the Romans so keen to copy the Greeks?"

That's just too damn funny to even attempt to answer. XD XD XD

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

My mom is older (than most parents of kids my age -- and I'm no kid anymore, but...)

Anyway, she was totally not shocked by my tattoo at 21 "It's cute!" or various hair dye projects and punky cuts in my teens. My dad wasn't around but he wouldn't have cared either; once my mother was dyeing her hair black and for shits and giggles did my dad's, AND his moustache.

I think my mother would have been put off by a green mohawk or something, but colors found in nature were fine.