sundries

[rm]

Patty is feeling mostly better and the next seasons of Buffy and Angel have arrived. But, we won't be watching them tonight as we have tickets to Alvin Ailey.

Yesterday was long and stupid and I was pretty much non-verbal by the time I got home. Patty is thankfully very patient with me when I'm like that and I was able to wind down enough to sleep.

This weekend we may take a day-trip excursion to the beach. I also may bring my mother to Costco. Yeah, I'm scared too.

Anybody see Colbert last night? Was it just me or does he have a new writer? The show felt "edgier" (in a cranky, air quotes sort of way) and fail-y. Maybe it was just more racism and violence than I'm used to, evenin the face of the persona that is Colbert the host (as opposed to Colbert the performer performing Colbert) on the show.

Today you'll be able to read the first round stories in writerinadrawer, which is a fanfiction elimination competition for Torchwood fandom. Stories are shown without authors' names until after the voting is over and to vote you must provide reasons for your pick of the best and worst story of each round. I'm participating, mainly because I miss my fic output -- it soothes a place in me other projects don't. So I'm in it, maybe to win it, but mostly to write some stuff. The competition has a pretty wide variety of writers in it and the prompts are such we all have to stretch, so you should check it out. And that's all I can say about that.

Brittrack panelist application in for Dragon*Con.

Teen sailor located.

In Sweden 85% of men take paternity leave and it's considered weird if they don't. This is causing shifts in a lot of things, including the definition of masculinity. Let's think about all the reasons we can't get this done here, shall we?

Gay marriage passes in Iceland.

More anti-Muslim bigotry because of a proposed mosque near the WTC site.

French WWI cemetery desecrated with swastikas and other Nazi-related graffiti.

More as it happens, but you all never read this stuff if I don't post before 9:30.

Comments

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Yesterday was long and stupid and I was pretty much non-verbal by the time I got home. Patty is thankfully very patient with me when I'm like that and I was able to wind down enough to sleep.

For those who came in late (like me), I'm guessing you've talked about how you and Patty got together: what was that like? I like hearing about how couples become couples.

I don't have enough brain yet this morning to read the links, but I'll have more access to said brain later.

[rm.livejournal.com]

We met in fandon on the _riverside community. If you dig really hard you can see most of the flirting there and on here back when. We went to a bar on a Not Date and got hassled by this crazy dude who asked us if he'd be real if I stabbed him, when I tried to show patty how to use a dinner knife as a weapon because his stories about his ex-gf making him an omlete while wearing a thong were getting trying (that whole saga is here somewhere too).

Patty and I finally got together a couple of months later; three weeks after that she had to go to Cyprus on a dig, at which point my roommate declared she was moving to China and I should ask Patty to move in with me. It was a bit insane, but she said yes, and it's all awesome.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

I still can't believe that worked! :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

The part where I didn't kill you or the part where Patty said yes?

;)

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

In this case, the part where Patty said yes-- and that it worked out after that.

The parts where you didn't kill me over the course of those five years (and vice versa, to be fair) are so many and varied it's a little boggling. And somehow we still like each other!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I KNOW. We were pretty good at staying the hell away from each other when we were pissed, which helped a lot I think.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

I was also pretty good at going out, getting plastered, and spending the night with someone random when we were pissed . . . ahhh, good times.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well yeah. All I have to say is "it's not that there's a naked man on our couch, it's that his nakedness is ALL OVER OUR COUCH."

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Wooooooowww, I had totally blocked that out. ::shudder::

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lullabelle_/]

I read it whatever time you post. :)

I love your sundries list. Thank you for taking time each day to do it.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

This.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

ditto :)

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

I didn't see Colbert, but I did see both you and AfterElton tweet about it within seconds of each other, so now I'm very curious to know what was said.

you all never read this stuff if I don't post before 9:30.

I'll admit, it's rare that I think to come back and re-check to see what's been added once I've read the day's "sundries," whatever time that may happen.

I'm glad to hear Patty's feeling better. Have a blast at Alvin Ailey!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the exact quote but it was racist liek WOAH. Add to that some random violence meant to simulate a meteor shower that evoked school bullying, some really over the top stuff about BP (which was actually sort of funny) and I was like WHAT HAPPENED HERE?

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, that does sound over the top, even for him. Just poked around YouTube a bit, and it doesn't appear to be up yet, but it sounds like it will be sooner or later.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

He had two guys on to take opposing positions in a debate on the World Cup- one guy saying Americans don't like soccer, the other guy saying Americans should like it. The guy for soccer was arguing that soccer players are better athletes than those in other sports; making fun of (I think) football players, he said something like, "Those guys, they're seven feet tall and three hundred pounds, that's not normal! That's a freak of nature."

And Colbert replied, "Hey! They prefer to be called African Americans."

I think Colbert realized it was problematic as soon as he said it, because he got a weird look on his face, but it was all strange and off-putting.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I BLOCKED IT OUT IN MY TRAUMA.

The meteor thing also really disturbed me.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. Well, also, you were doing other things at the time, and not just watching.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Like being totally non-functional on the couch?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That takes lots of careful attention!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I had no idea the Swedish uptake of male parental leave was so high - I knew it'd be higher than the US' (for all the reasons we can think of), but I wasn't expecting over four in five.

And good grief about the mosque-related bigotry. With no sense of history, either. Now short our memories are, that we forget that terrorism was also perpetrated by Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and by anti-choice evangelicals here in the US.

No problem about the early sundries -works for me, as I'm on funny hours over the summer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

By comparison, I believe the number in Germany is only about 20 - 30% and there is much shorter, just 6 weeks I think?

[gement.livejournal.com]

More as it happens, but you all never read this stuff if I don't post before 9:30.

I actually have the opposite problem; once I've read a post, I don't go back to it unless there's a response to my comment, and then I find OH! Five more links on new topics.

It is entirely your journal and your deal, but I wanted to let you know that I always worry about missing later updates from your sundries, and wonder why you don't put them on the next day.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Largely it's a function of my own short attention span theater and a desire not to make more than 3 - 5 posts in a day (which annoys the fuck out of most readers).

This way I can keep my link soup and what I are for lunch separate from when I have times for rants or essays or random exclamations of things like "London, motherfuckers!"

[gement.livejournal.com]

Aha! Short attention span theater makes sense of it. You always seem so much more organized than me; I had not considered that we might have the same issues with trying to save up a list of little details for later.

I do appreciate you wanting to keep it to one a day.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish I were organized! I'm good at creating systems and understanding other people's disorganization, but don't mistake my ability to get a lot done for knowing what the fuck is going on.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Ha! Everyone thinks I'm organized, but I'm not. Somehow I fool everyone into thinking I am, not quite sure how.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Those godless crazy Swedes, being all reasonable and modern! Actually I don't know how religious the Swedes may be, but I can envision the oppositions argument to paternity leave being based on that lovely old chestnut about apostate Europeans.

Kink bingo fic about assassains, y/n?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Y!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Throat fetish for the win!

(I so wish you could come over and I would make you watch me play this video game because it is hilarious and the side characters you drag around as your party will break into bickering or flirting at random.)

[maryling.livejournal.com]

Mind if I ask what game you're playing?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Dragon Age Origins. I was pleasantly surprised by how funny the dialogue often is!

[maryling.livejournal.com]

Hah, I thought so! I started playing it just the other day and thoroughly enjoy listening to Alistair and Morrigan bickering.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It only gets better too - I really like their random conversations with the mabari hound.

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

We aren't exactly a ground breaking family by my husband took 9 months of unpaid maternity leave after my maternity leave of 13 week ended when our son was born 10 years ago. It helped that we could handle our lives on one income...but it was pretty unheard of at the time unless they were planning on being Stay At Home Dads. I am glad he did. It made everyone's lives easier and better.

I hope to see better parental leave policies in the US one day.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Here's one for tomorrow, if you haven't already covered it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10220920.stm

"Eve Teasing is a catch-all term which usually involves young men irritating or upsetting girls or women by making sexual innuendos against them in public or in work places."

Bunch of sick bastards.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

One of my co-workers is in Sweden and I remember a few years ago when he said he'd be out for the next few months on paternity leave. I thought it was awesome and at the same time, I wonder how Sweden pulls it off. How is their productivity so high with so many days off for maternity and paternity leave? And the 120 sick days allowed to take care of sick kids! Seems unreal to me. In the U.S. at least, I see people abusing their handful of sick days as it is. I wonder if people's behavior would change if time off didn't seem so scarce.