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sundries

I cut my hair!

Patty has chosen a living situation in Cardiff and I believe is moving in there today. There are chickens. Someone, please use the chickens detail in a Torchwood fic.

Dress has been altered thanks to

marchek. After I bought shoes for it, which were higher than I intended but are super comfy, and an industrial bra that basically takes me form a B-cup to a DD-cup, I decided it didn't need to be shortened, it just needed to be nipped in slightly on one side, and it has been. So it looks great, even if it's pure technology. Perhaps, that's entirely suitable.

I fear I am getting Patty's cold. Add to this that I need to get up at 4am tomorrow because of one of those vagaries of media-related employment and I'm full of dread. Mostly, I just need to power through the event tomorrow night, and then if I get sick, I get sick, although I'd rather manage to power through this whole week -- what with the Paley Center and the Inception rehearsal.

We haven't gotten any mail at the house in several days, which is pretty unusual. Should I be concerned about this in a "some asshole did a change of address on me" or something similar way?

Last night I tried to start my "It Gets Better" video. I've run into a few problems, including that most of the anti-gay bullying I experienced was during my completely horrific freshman year of college; that's not very promising is it? Maybe I should be vague. Also, somewhere towards the end of messing with it last night I sort of had a "Oh, this is how iMovie works!" breakthrough that has now led me to being all "scrap this, story board, start again, be awesome!" which on on hand is unnecessary, but on the other hand, does speak to greater cogency. Also, the power of editing is awesome, because it helps the directorial imagination, but wow, I HATE EDITING. At least with iMovie. It's a patience thing. MAKE IT GO. GRah.

If the aliens come, the UN has a plan.

I mentioned Sukkah City last week, here's an article about it.

An amicus brief opposing gay marriage has been filed to the 9th Circuit from Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. Just so you know which states are on notice.

What's being sold in ads that feature "female empowerment"? I generally hate those ads. To some people they're inspiring. To me they say "you're nothing, but if you buy this thing, you can feel like you have one tiny little choice in the world."

Branding carrots as junk food to get kids to eat them.

The Kafkaeqsue legal wrangle over Kafka's papers.

"The Ecstasy of Grief" by

eleusis_walks: an essay on the death of Jenny Calendar in Buffy which I'm linking to for my own reference because it's about death stuff.

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I'm glad the UN is on the ball. Best to keep presidents and prime ministers out of it.

"Take me to your obscure Malaysian astrophysicist" lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

We haven't gotten any mail at the house in several days, which is pretty unusual. Should I be concerned about this in a "some asshole did a change of address on me" or something similar way?

Although it sounds strange, I would be more concerned about someone picking up your mail. When I lived in NC, this happened to me. The police said there was a huge ring of mail theft, they were looking for anything that would give them money in way or fashion - stolen credit cards, a couple dollars of cash, freebies from 2 for 1 coupons. It was really strange. My identity wasn't stolen, but I was one of the lucky ones. Mention this to your mail carrier / local post office, they may have some advice or info - and check your credit report just in case.

I don't know how someone would pick up my mail here. I live in an apartment building. Someone would have to have both a key to my mailbox and a key to our small building.

Humm, that is odd.

maybe leaving "this mailbox is lonely" or "hungry" signs for the postman would help? ;-)

That carrot story is really scary. Why can't we enjoy food for the way it tastes and its nutritional value instead of having to be "sold" something in flashy packaging. If you need to put your kids carrots in junk food packaging, I would be willing to bet that you have bigger problems (and broader negative implications) with how you are raising your children than getting them to eat healthy snacks.

- A very opinionated non-mom

- Send yourself a letter. If you don't receive it after two days, three max, something's up.

- I can't wait to see your "it gets better" video! :)

- I'm glad the UN seems to be assuming a peaceful first contact, not an invasion or interstellar war scenario. Still, I wonder if a person who's (hypothetically) going to speak for the entire bloody planet shouldn't be elected rather than appointed.

It's somewhat comforting to know that video editing on a non-dedicated Mac is actually annoying for the same reasons that video editing on a PC is. Waiting makes me stabby. I still have to make my video, once I find my camera and my spoons.

That essay about Jenny Calendar is fabulous. Thank you for linking!

The article about carrots is cynical but probably unavoidably accurate.

I had a moment at work recently that made me laugh over something similar to that article: A few of us had gone to Whole Foods to get lunch. I had bought some Gala apples, and one of my co-workers had bought pluots. In what may have been the healthiest "let's trade!" ever, we traded an apple for a pluot.

Clearly, fruits and veggies just need a better marketing firm!

What the fuck is a pluot?

They're a cross (pollination? breeding? splicing?) of a plum and an apricot. They're delicious.

They have the sweetness of an apricot, and the almost spicy flavor of a good black plum.

iMovie does indeed suck balls. But it's free. *sigh*

I think it's much harder to spring a change of address on someone these days. When I went to fill out the form last week, I couldn't even find any paper forms at the post office. I had to do it online, and they have a $1 surcharge 'to prevent fraud.' So I doubt it's that. Still possible, but much less likely.

Whenever I find a post office that still has the paper forms, I take one. I move a lot.

Edited 2010-09-27 05:14 (UTC)

I wish someone would make a bra that would take me from a DD to a B.

Hear hear x27.

An amicus brief opposing gay marriage has been filed to the 9th Circuit from Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. Just so you know which states are on notice.

There are times when I'm happy with my state, and then there are times like these when I want to punch it in the gut.

This.

Apropos of media-related employment, I think you should get a gig on White Collar. (By which I mean the universe should hand it to you, not that I'm telling you what to do.)

Oh, I have a thing to say about that, a long thing.

Part of it is a union issue (which is a rant in and of itself about the long standing fuckery between SAG and AFTRA) and part of it is about what I'm calling the Beauty Escalation Wars. Other than Mozzie, there are no ordinary looking people in the White Collar's New York

I can't speak as far as the union stuff -- I'm completely ignorant of any disagreements there, although I'm happy to be enlightened when you have time.

For better or for worse (and for worse in the same way that there were hardly any black/Asian/even parenthetically visibly noncisgendered persons on the runways at Fashion Week), I think the attractiveness level was a conscious decision on the part of the producers, to make it stand out from L&O.

Oh yes, it is conscious, but I don't think it's a response to L&O. I think White Collar is explicitly a fantasy and explicitly fantastical, despite being set in a non-SF/F setting. Where as L&O is just a fiction, theoretically set here.

But like I said, it's a long ass post on the list of long ass posts I need to write. White Collar is such a funny (by funny I mean odd) show in that it's so good on so many things and so muddled or really faily on so many others.

I've run into a few problems, including that most of the anti-gay bullying I experienced was during my completely horrific freshman year of college; that's not very promising is it? Maybe I should be vague.

I don't think it's a good idea. Yes, it gets better, but there are ups and downs. And freshmen are still very young.

Yeah, better to be prepared for the possibility of horrific times at college (and how to recognize it and make it stop) than perpetuating the "College is a merry wonderland that gets you away from your parents and high school peers AND THEN IT IS ALL BETTER", because if your collegemates are even worse...

And it did get better.

Also, YMMV, but the people who need this the most are the people who are already having horrible stuff done to them. You are unlikely to shock them with the details of your experience's particular permutation of man's inhumanity to man. The shocking part is that you survived even all this, and this isn't "only what you deserve for being That Way", and that it's better *now*.

Amazingly, I have been working on a TW fic that includes chickens. It was one of my ideas for VS3 that wasn't used, and it kept resonating with me. The idea. Not the chickens. Jack and Ianto take the vacation joked about at the end of "The Sin Eaters," the 'little cabin by the sea, Captain Jack to protect you from the sea monsters...' vacation. Only, being Torchwood, it's not much of a holiday. It's got classic Who aliens, the Welsh Atlantis, and blue-silver Auracana chickens (and their blue-green eggs).

If there's anyone here who has ever gone scuba diving, I'd appreciate some input, too. I've done a fair bit of online research, but first person experience is always better.

Edited 2010-09-26 17:54 (UTC)

I was very on the fence about whether or not to support the "It Gets Better" project, because I've heard such negative stuff about Dan Savage in the past, but then I read Neo-prodigy's comment on Dan Savage and I'm not going to support it. It is theoretically a nice idea, but I object to the bigoted politics of the guy at the source.

I'm very aware of the many problematic things that have and continue to come out of Savage's mouth, and I at least alluded to them in my initial post about this. For me, right now, I think there is more benefit to getting this message out there, from more voices (I worry a lot that the net result of this effort will be videos mostly from somewhat well-off white gay men and that this won't speak to PoC, women, trans people, and those with different socioeconomic backgrounds in the queer community) than in boycotting it because a good idea came from a problematic guy. Your mileage may understandably vary a lot. My choice may be wrong, and who knows, may in fact prove to be different at some other point in time. There are certainly, and unfortunately, large and significant intersecting issues here that I will try to make more of a public note of when I find myself mentioning this project again in the future.

Also, thank you for the reminder to go say hello to

neo_prodigy who I got to briefly meet at Dragon*Con.

Edited 2010-09-26 19:24 (UTC)

Understood. I missed your original post about it; I'm sorry for pointing out something you were already well-aware of! It was just something I was chewing on, and Neo's comment was enlightening for me.

All good! I apologize if my crankier than usual state of being got on you. I'm still sort of having a moment from yesterday.

(We have a lot of Dan Savage in the house, because Patty enjoys his podcasts often for the car-crash factor, so I am usually up to date in a 360-degrees sort of way on bad!Dan, good!Dan and wtf!Dan)

Not a problem -- September has been such a nasty month for so many people I know, I'm trying to be mellow on interpersonal stuff. :} And I know I've been engaging in a lot of LJ-skimming action lately for much the same September reason.

But he doesn't cite his sources. How can rumor mongering be enlightening to anyone?

I keep wanting to do a video, or asking my boyfriend to do a video with me, but a lot of the shit I got was after I came out in my early/mid 20's, from my family, after I was away from them. And I'm not sure if it's really a good idea to do "it gets better" two months after breaking up with my fiancee, even though those videos have been helping me get through the breakup without freaking out too hard.

I object to him too, but I think the project is worthwhile.

This is the first time I heard of anyone claiming the Dan Savage was either racist or against trans people. I've been reading Savage Love for years and I've not read anything of the kind. I don't read and watch everything Savage does, but this sounds like bullshit to me.

And the fact that he doesn't cite any particular incident for his boldfaced assertion makes it all the worse.

I keep thinking I should do an "it gets better" video complete with ASL, but there is so much WTF shitfuckery in my past, and I'm not sure my signing is up to the job, and I don't have the video equipment for it anyway.

But mostly it's that there are still scars from that time in my life that I'm really not ready to poke at yet, even 20 years later.

I think that is all very reasonable.

You remind me that I need to caption my video when I do it, so thank you for commenting. I have a few queer friends who are part of communities that use ASL. I'll make sure the local ones know they can use my tech if they want to do something.

Thank you for posting this.

Yes. The other piece, which I jogged into place this morning by a post by a queer PoC is that... when your life is intersectional, it doesn't always Get Better. You just get better at coping, and at finding people to support you in the ways you need it. But that's not something one needs to hear when one is staring at the knife/pill-bottle/whathaveyou, y'know? That's something you discuss after you've talked them down from the crisis and have them in a safer space.

They need to change the name of the carrots. "Baby Carrots" does not inspire me to think of them as junk food.

The Verizon "Rule the Air" ad bothers me a lot. It doesn't mean anything. It could mean something, but verizon itself has little to do with equality and female power.

Another ad phenomenon I dislike are the companies which make rainbow-covered ads for queer magazines, but would never try to place a queer-oriented ad elsewhere. We can see photographs of victorian couples who are presumably gay or lesbian in some (I think for an airline), with the message, "We have always been progressive. Love us." The other ads generally say, "We don't hate you, so give us your money." The ads aren't relevant in the way that ads meant for heterosexual couples or families are relevant. An ad with a couple making jokes while sitting down to dinner or bedding down for the night is specific about a facet of heterosexual life; a queer ad saying, "You're queer and you should shop here" has very little to do with actual queer people.

For the video, I don't think you need to be vague. You have survived all the crap, which is empowering to people wondering if they can make it. It is also important to know that there are other people out there who are either queer or queer-friendly, that none of us needs to be alone and that there are places to go which are better than others. If we tell them that everything is awesome once they get to college, those that can't get to college for whatever reason may become even more hopeless. And those that do go there thinking everything will be awesome won't have had the disclaimer that not all colleges are awesome towards queer people.

I just found an article linked to a list (with pictures) of Verizon's leadership team - http://www22.verizon.com/Content/ExecutiveCenter/BiosAndPictures/BiosAndPictures.htm

They have one woman, total. Win.

"Bore da! A yw'n bod ieir yma?"

"Bore da! Ydy, mae'n bod ieir yma."

"Os gwelwch yn dda, pam y mae ieir yma?"

"Mae'n busnes Hogwarts. Maent yn cadw y Daleks i ffwrdd."

"Rydych wedi 'n bert llygaid."

"Rydych wedi 'n bert llygaid."
***

If given a choice between chocolate or raw carrots, it's a tossup which my children will take. Chocolate is a sometimes-treat that they do enjoy, but they looove carrots. We stopped by the farm market (as in, a Big farm that has its own pre-picked veggies market) and I had to threaten my daughter to keep her from stealing apples. I did sneak a couple of bites from the apple that she had taken, a Courtland, and oh man was it good. (Fortunately, the staff are very understanding about greedy little fingers and do encourage courteous sampling. Taking one bite out of each apple in a basket would be way out of line; taking one apple out of a basket and devouring it is acceptable. I had to check last year when she took an apple, took one bite, and then hid in an unreachable spot until she'd finished the apple.)

The problem with fruits and veggies is not that they don't taste good. The problem is that the parents aren't eating enough of 'em, or they're not buying good enough produce. If you can't get it directly from a farmer or farmers' market, getting produce from the fancy, preferably organic, stores is your best bet. (Whole Foods does not suck. Trader Joe's is too boutique-y for me. My Organic Market is a DC-metro "crunchy granola" chain that is absolutely stupendous.)

I initially found the Jenny Calendar article interesting but it makes the same mistake of drawing a fuzzy line between depicting a horrible event and endorsing that horrible event. Art is not about presenting an ideal world and pontificating on it. Art is about depicting the brutal and horrifying and beautiful and fascinating life that we all got to deal with.

Hey, talk to the author. I put the link so I could keep track of the thing because that character's death is relevant to my research.

Secondly, no one gets to decide what art is for anyone else, or why.

Have you had your mail held at all recently? I once had a post office start delivering my mail after a hold, and then decide randomly that I was still on hold. Might be worth going by the post office and just asking if they have any mail for you?

No, we've never used a mail hold.

Missouri's not in on that amicus brief? That's a relief, I suppose, but I'm sad that it's also a surprise.

Good luck with your "It Gets Better" thing. These things are hard. I sort of want to do one, but worry that my current state of "better" is not exactly compelling in terms of things to look forward to. Maybe this time next year?

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Nid Yw Arwain Ni I Brofedigaeth

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