sundries

[rm]

I am still dealing with this headache thing. It is getting better and seems to be both a sinus headache (since there's a spot if I press near my temple it hurts, but don't look that up on the Internet or it will tell you, you are dying) and a tension headache caused by my utterly destroyed shoulder muscles, which I think has to do with my desk set up. All of this said, it's impeding my ability to work and making me sort of aggravated.

Tonight Patty and I are going to Tango del Diablo. I could totally get away with wearing my tux to this, but the effort and physical restriction, especially in light of the state of my head and shoulders mentioned above, seems completely beyond me. Maybe a suit. Hell, maybe a dress because it takes me the least time. I don't know.

Right, so about the refrigerator thing? I am an idiot and not suited for the century. I was turning the knob the wrong way. It's cold again now.

In the realm of Doctor Who tie-in novels, I am currently reading The Stealers of Dreams about a world where lying and fiction is illegal. It's actually freaking me out a little.

We watched another episode of Buffy last night. James Marsters is a great actor because making that speech that ends with him on the cross any type of interesting and moving as opposed to just chaotic and weird took a LOT of effort. Of course, since he's known as the hot guy with the great abs from the trashy genre show, we're never going to get lots of chances to see him really act, and that's a damn shame.

I am getting really excited about Bristol, even though I still have to make my train reservations and my hotel reservations for Bristol itself. Of course, everything is fitting together perfectly... without Cardiff, a problem which is still, foolishly, running around in the back of my head. I should just email the Fabulous Welshcakes store and see if I can get them to post me an order to my hotel, which really would solve about 50% of my absurdity. Today's mantras: London has stories too and Even you don't like trains that much. It's helping.

writerinadrawer voting opens later today.

Also on the Buffy front I read this hilariously smart fic by stakebait in which Oz and Ethan Rayne hook-up... at Burning Man.

Tateishi Onojiro, New York City's heartthrob, 1860. Article also contains the wonderful phrase: "New York's preferred tense is the future," although I don't know if I agree with the sentiment.

Apparently, people have decided it's bad for children to have best friends now. I would have suffocated as a kid without mine. I don't like casual conversation now any more than I did then. I would have been miserable attempting to have a set of light connections about nothing in particular. The article suggests that it's about teaching kids not to be so possessive of their friends, but I remember how much my parents hated how close I was to my best friends, and to me I can't help but think this is another way for a certain stripe of today's super-clingy parents to keep their child theirs for longer.

Meanwhile, the doctors vs. midwives thing here is ongoing, and let's be clear, about misogyny and the medicalization of femaleness.

That gay-themed French McDonald's ad continues to stir things up as the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce drops its relationship with McDonald's due to the company's Chief of Operations' comments about how such an ad would never be shown in the US due to cultural differences.

A brief, odd geographic note about the clitoral surgery links from yesterday: While Cornell University is mostly located in Ithaca, these events are related to the affiliated Cornell University Medical Center, which is located on the Upper East Side in New York City.

Comments

[featherofeeling.livejournal.com]

On the best friends issue: while I think deep relationships with a few people or one person are wonderful for children (and adults), I have negative associations with the term "best friend" and can sympathize with people who want to diminish social pressure to have one, or the exclusivity and superiority that can come along with it. The term calls to mind years of anxiously trying to navigate a social landscape that was dominated by the idea that I was supposed to have one Best Friend - and to be somebody else's Best Friend. The problem was, my ties didn't fit perfectly into that narrative. I had a lot of uncertainty about where I stood in relationship to my friends, and it was based on constant wondering whether I could be classified as my best friend's best friend, or if her other friend was more "best" than I, or if my other friend should really be considered as my "best." I think I analyzed this so much that I didn't feel like I could rely on them as much as perhaps I could have. What actually mattered is that we were great friends, who sometimes turned to others for different needs, and if I'd been thinking in terms of "really good friend," or something akin to "bosom buddies" (but less dated) rather than "best friend" I would have been spared plenty of feelings of inferiority and self-doubt. Labels matter, and because it hurt a lot when I couldn't quite fit into the "best friend" one, it isn't necessarily the one I'd choose to set the script for childhood relationships, even for nerdy kids like I was who love intense connections.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

In many ways, I consider Stealers of Dreams to be the best of the entire run of tie-ins. Right when you think it's going to be a budget Fahrenheit 451... it isn't.

Not have a best friend? I have one word for that: insane! Although in the article I notice that one of the kids who supposedly "doesn't" have a best friend instead runs with a pack of them. It's possible to have a tribe of best friends; it's different than having just one, but it's also universes different from not having a close friend at all.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

what? kids should absolutely have a best friend (or more than one, even) - kids without a best friend grow up to be distrustful and socially awkward (points at self)

A sundry item for you!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

The story of a gluten free wedding cake. King Arthur Flour is developing a lot of gluten free products.

[pineapplechild.livejournal.com]

Man. While I'm a bit out of that article's target zone-- I have a really, really close group of three or four people-- I can't imagine trying to do life without those really close bonds. Not to mention, in middle school and high school there just weren't a lot of the other kids who could keep up with me and keep me interested. Much less people I trusted the way I trust my Horde. (that group of 4 people)

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I hate casual conversation as well. It's one of the reasons why it's so hard for me to make new friends anywhere, because I keep to myself rather than make idle chit-chat, thus everyone remains a stranger to me.

[eac.livejournal.com]

It's nice to hear your compliment of Marsters, since he often gets no respect. In the later seasons of Buffy I often felt that he acted brilliantly scene by scene, but couldn't hold Spike together as a coherent character over a whole season. I didn't fault him for that, though, because the scripts don't draw him as a consistent character. It's been a long time since I watched any Buffy. I wonder what it would look like now.

Also, on the best friends thing -- it's hard for me to realize that people feel so entitled to interfere with their children (hell, MY children) these days. My parents and teachers had their faults, but they generally left me to my own devices unless there was some clear problem. I was awfully introverted, and forcing me to interact with larger groups would have been a violation...

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

Ah, doctors vs. midwives, I know the battle well. From the sidelines, mercifully, but let's just say I have an avid interest in the movement for Normal Birth.

That written agreements thing? So. Fucking. Paternalistic. The midwives do not need to be overseen by doctors. The midwives will oversee themselves.

I've given birth in two provinces that have had established colleges of midwives, legal and funded by the province, for about a decade each. The relationship between midwifery and obstetrics is pretty good, around here. There does not need to be an adversarial relationship; the two groups provide different things. Midwives are terrific at attending normal births, and obstetricians are great at managing high risk births. For the many points in between, combinations work.

There is, however, a crazy adversarial thing happening in several places, and it's just awful. The doctors come out looking greedy, the midwives are painted as irresponsible ideologues, and the women who ought to be served by these groups end up as pawns in a battle over their bodies and their experience.

I might be more than a touch political about this one.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

If you haven't heard Dan Savage's commentary on the McDonalds ad from his 6/15 Savage Lovecast, I highly recommend it. The short version: people are pointing to this ad as being pro-norming, and oh, how wonderful France is for GLBTQ people. If you look at the narrative, though, it's a gay kid who stays in the closet while his dad is all, "sorry you go to an all-boys school because you can't see girls."

I haven't seen anybody else talk about this, though it's possible I haven't been looking very closely on account of limiting some of my surfing time.