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!"

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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

[weirdquark]

Better in that it's nice to know it's not just your parents being assholes; worse in that it's a prevailing cultural attitude that kids (and probably girls in particular) are seen to belong to their parents.

I dyed my hair in high school a couple of times to make it a redder shade of my natural color and my parents were both fine with it. I don't remember how this came up, but when I was in college my mother asked me, in this very tremulous "please say no" voice if I was planning on dying my hair a weird color. (And if I had been, she would have dealt, because both of my parents are good at being supportive and letting me be my own person, even if they don't always get it, but she was relieved to hear that I wasn't.)

There's that list of conversations college students don't want to have with their parents after going to college: "Mom, I shaved my head/dyed my hair bright orange" "Mom, I got a tattoo" "Mom, I pierced [some part of my body that isn't my ears]" "Mom, I'm gay".

My mother: totally fine with me being queer. It's the body modification, even something as temporary as hair, that would have freaked her out.

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

I remember my mother telling me that if I ever cut or coloured my hair like Cyndi Lauper's, she would kick me out of the house. I was ten.

As a result of that, I didn't dye my hair until I was 27, and even then I only got blond highlights. (Now it's red, so I got over it, apparently.)

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I dyed my hair in high school a couple of times to make it a redder shade of my natural color and my parents were both fine with it.

As did I - I wasn't particularly interested in tinting my hair a radical shade, but my hair naturally goes redder when it's had a touch of the sun, and I quite like it.

[juniperus.livejournal.com]

I got serious and similar flack (from my mother, not my father) for screwing with my hair in high school. Instead of permanent dye, because there were RAMIFICATIONS for dye, I got all clever (and yelled at, but whatev) and used Aquanet wet as the base for crushed eye shadow of a variety of shades. Bright streaks of color that I could scrub out with a washcloth while she glared at me. I've always been that kid, much to their dismay.

This year, in fact, I've had the dyed my hair orange (semi-perm, alas)and tattoo conversations. At 39. Since she always finds something to ride me about, it's always seemed like a good idea to just hand her something, lest she dig around and actually light on something that would bother me.