sundries

[rm]

It's cooler today, but about a 100 times more humid. It's truly, truly disgusting and like living on a planet with unscented pea soup for atmosphere.

Today's goal: Letting a bunch of anger go because it doesn't matter if it's right or justified or if I'm entitled to my emotions. It's not solving anything, it's not going to solve anything, and it's just distracting from pretty much everything else in my life. Ah, parents.

Another hard day of work today, but then things ease up and Patty and I have dance tickets tomorrow and there's a vintage beach thing we're going to on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Last night Patty and I had a hilarious and sort of bizarre conversation about how Cardiff will be good for her career as a pirate.

In the UK does anyone have a feeling about Easy Hotel vs. Travelodge?

Having done a bit of reading on Tomorrow's Joe yesterday, I think I'll be able to manage writing my proposal for the D*C academic conference today.

Also, this just crossed my radar. There's adapting the death stuff (current paper isn't just about Ianto at all, but there's plenty of room to do something on death and mourning across DW properties, because yo, regeneration), and there's the deromanticization of immortality across Jack's arc thing I've been screwing with. I'll come up with something.

I'm also being a responsible person and joining The Popular Culture Association (today) and The Science Fiction Research Association (actually in 2011, since they run their membership by calendar years and it's stupid to join now, grrr). 'Cause like I should, or something.

A non-scientific poll on body image and geek events. One thing that popped out at me: over 40% of respondents (who are overwhelmingly female) report having experienced unwanted touching at cons. Check it out.

Anti-Muslim hate on NYC buses. via redstapler.

A man who sleeps with a prostitute is not allowed to donate blood for one year. A gay man may not donate blood ever. Debate on blood donation rules heats up.

Lt. Dan Choi is starting a hunger strike in response to DADT.

Apple surpasses Microsoft in tech. The dreams of my 80s childhood, vindicated!

A horse is not a car: tales of the mounted police.

Last night on Buffy: I'm so glad that Dawn shoplifting thing is finally out. Because that was so awkward and looming. Not sure how I feel about Willow refusing to do magic when it was a pragmatic solution to a potentially life and death problem. And then fucking Riley comes back! Like the wife. Riley's still boring. Spike is "the Doctor?!?" I like Buffy's acceptance that dumb-ass schemes are just part of who Spike is. Love her calling him William. Don't necessarily believe she was just using him or that I would have written her walking away there and in that way. Was grateful for the break from Evil Nerd Conglomerate.

Comments

[elisi]

And then fucking Riley comes back!
Yeah. That's one of the most hated episodes ever - S6 sure has its low points.

As for Spike being 'the Doctor' then the best way of viewing that is to figure that Riley is just lying a little bit, being jealous and all. 'Cause it doesn't make sense otherwise.

(I am generally not a fan of re-writes, but this ep. is an exception. I once added Angel to the mix, as you can see in my icon. It was fun!)

Also thanks for all the links btw. Will try to check them out later.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

the deromanticization of immortality across Jack's arc thing

Yanno, I'd attend that panel at Dragon*Con. Not just Jack, but Spike and Angel, too...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Not what I'm pitching for D*C and I can't include Spike and Angel for the DW book, but yeah, I'm doing something with this at some point, because I sort of keep coming back to it over and over and over again.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that immortality is often sort of a curse in sci-fi (Jack, Fellig - a one-shot X-Files character)when sci-fi fans are sort who would like to live to see something like routine space travel or communion with aliens.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

I stayed at Easy Hotel and really liked it. Not fancy, but really clean.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Re: Blood Donations.
We have the same clause, that gays can't donate blood ever and someone who sleeps with a sex-worker can after a year.

I'm a regular blood donor, I'm disturbingly healthy, my blood type is common and I don't have any weird side effects after I give my pint. The thing is, here, because we have a national health care system by donating a pint you're insured in case of an emergency and you need a blood transfusion. That is, if you donate once a year, you're insured for 12 months, once you've given 10, you're insured for life.

Last week I donated and as I was filling in the info on the form I crossed out (like I always do) the "gay clause" and got into a heated argument with the paramedic, how it's a denial of access to medicine and that's it just simply unethical.

She said it was like choosing not to be an organ donor. I was like, "huh, no! You're creating a double standard in medical treatment!"

*sigh*

[rm.livejournal.com]

I assume the gay thing does not apply to women there? It's men who have sex with men here only. I can't donate blood for other reasons (including my weight and that celiac is classified as an auto-immune disorder despite being non-contagious).

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

It's men who have sex with men here only.

Really? This may have changed since I last attempted to give blood (my hematocrit has always been too low to donate), but the way the question was phrased at the time (~15 years ago?), I assumed that if one had ever had sex with a man who had had sex with a man, one was out.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's no mentioning of women who have sex with women. It's only men who have sex with men all over the West as far as I'm aware. The thing is that I tried to explain that the unsafe sex clause was applicable to everyone because no one is immune to AIDS and other STI's and she was like, well what can I do, we go according to the European Model.
Gah, like blocks of wood.

There's hardly any knowledge in my parts regarding women who have sex with women. I had to explain to my GYN that yes I am sexually active, no not with a man, yeah that really is sex!
Jesus.
And she's got a good reputation to boot.

[graene.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was noticing from the comments on the link, that there's this implicit assumption that women don't do anal and that gay men (high risk!) never sleep with a women 'just once'.

Perhaps they need to re-phrase entirely: have you had any sexual contact other than with an exclusive, established monogamous partner in the last month?

Or more simply even: Have you had sex in the last two weeks?

And they are still happy to take my blood even though the alopecia is auto-immune. Huh.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Same in the UK as well. I am livid about it, my whole family gives blood. My brother can give blood even if he has unprotected sex with a different woman every night (he doesn't, but he can) yet I, monogamous me, cannot be allowed near the blood banks because my gayness will infect the pure straight blood


And in my case it caused no small amount of awkwardness as a teenager when the whole family turned out to give blood that I COULDN'T give blood and wasn't ready to tell my parents why

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

And then fucking Riley comes back!

We've restarted Buffy from Season 1, and I'm already dreading getting to Riley. He's so. very. annoying. I noticed that he returns in Season 6 and I was surprised that he hadn't been ushered out death's door the way most people exit that series.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Riley is a Golden Retriever. If I think of it that way it helps, somehow.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

I believe that Travelodges aren't too vile, but haven't experienced one myself.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

i love that buffy episode! and spike as "the doctor" !!!

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I read the bit about the 'body image' poll - it made me think about how I avoid many of those events because of my body image. My body does not lend towards being anything other than the Harkonan barron from Dune. Its mostly why I avoid steampunk at the moment.

Then I read the next line and saw that cisgendered males need not apply.


Still I found that the questions asked in the poll were interesting to me, and made me think about how I behave/act in social situations based on my body image.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

*nods* There may well be something to be said about masculinities and body image, but that would be a separate study; the OP was primarily interested in how women are treated at such events, and how they behave (or are treated) in relation to their body image.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Posted this on the poll's comments:

I know this is kind of a strange point to raise, but I can't think, in 33 years of congoing, of any unwanted touch.

And now I'm questioning it: do I not remember? did it not happen? do I project a radioactive field to people I don't want to be touched by? or am I just more willing to be touched?

I do remember uncomfortable come-ons, just not touch.

P.S. - my shiny happy employer thanks you for your love of our products. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

I dislike casual social hugging. This is rarely respected at cons, so at cons I experience tons of unwanted touch, and the fact that it is not intended to be sexual or creepy doesn't make it less unpleasant for me. I suspect many, many people have this experience at cons. There's this attitude that you're not being a Good Happy Nerd if you don't engage in social touching.

Additionally, costumes make people touch, a lot -- and I don't mean touching the costume, either. You may have also seen my comment about what happened at Dragon*Con last year.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

The gay man blood donation thing makes my blood boil in many, many ways.

Also, because I've had sex with a trans woman, I'm not supposed to give blood either.

Guess what? I lied. I know (thanks to multiple blood tests) that my blood is clean. I don't give blood often in any case, but I don't feel that I should be banned for life for having *protected* sex once with her when she didn't ejaculate, when my blood has been proven clean on multiple occasions.

It's disgusting, homophobic and wrong.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

It's truly, truly disgusting and like living on a planet with unscented pea soup for atmosphere.

I refer to this sort of weather as being trapped in an enormous gym sock. If it's super awful, or I'm drunk, that often changes to other garments.

And wow, that is a delicious-looking call for papers.

It's interesting, looking at the Apple v. Microsoft thing. It looks like MS is still winning in market share for actual computers, but that Apple is dominating in smaller devices. To me, that means that there are people who are PCs for things like desktop and laptop devices, but using iPhones and iPods and iPads as well. Plus, they're including revenues from iTunes there, for which Apple is just the distributor, not the content designer. Which, to me, indicates that the article is wrong about consumer tech > other sectors. It's significant, though, and kind of neat.

I'm still parsing the Dan Choi stuff, and would be curious about your thoughts. I was too young and too solitary for Act Up to be a tangible influence for me, and I can't tell whether it's attitudes in my environment or the effect of groups like HRC and their strategies that makes my brain grind to a halt on this.

Re: blood donation, I had quit donating blood because my whole life/presentation/gender/sexuality is such that even if I am allowed to, it's as a result of the loophole in which I am perceived as "not really" what and who I am. I see what they're saying, but they're also leaving out blood borne pathogen rates among other minority groups that are high. Which, you know, I can't imagine that banning African American women would go over at all well...

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think Lt. Choi is doing the right thing, and I think it comes out of his sense of what the military is and his being a West Point graduate.

I also don't know that it will make a damn bit a difference and I fear for his well being.

Most importantly, his calls for less extreme civil disobedience from those who support DADT are critical and need to be listened to en masse. Although I no longer know if we live in a culture that is likely to. There are a lot of things that are different since I kept foam-core Act Up posters in my door room and jeered at cops for wearing rubber gloves at our protests; not all of those changes are good.

Popular Culture Association

[ludimagist.livejournal.com]

You might want to hold off on PCA/ACA until you present at one of their conferences.

You have to join to register for the conference, otherwise it's just an expensive journal subscription.

On the upside, their conferences sometimes have some really interesting panels.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I have never stayed in Easy Hotel but I have stayed in many many many many Travel Lodges (I've only stayed in Premier Inn more often) I have never found them anything but wonderfully comfortable. Not luxurious perhaps, but very comfortable, more than adequate, surprisingly quiet and generally all round good. And, no, I have no ties to them :P

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I've never understood the complete ban of gay men from blood donation, since they always test the blood anyway.