sundries

[rm]

Patty and I are still in data limbo land. One of these data points will affect whether she will be able to visit me in Switzerland, so that's important! Others are a bit farther down the time line, but involve her next trip, potential career stuff on my end that has me a little flustered, and how those are going to interact with the trip to France I'm trying to plan for us.

Yesterday my residuals came. Which is nice, since the residuals tracker on the SAG website has been broken for a while, and I had no idea how much they were going to be. More than I expected (they were bad last quarter, but have been super high other quarters -- they just spiked again), which means I can register for the short film course I want to do without worrying about the $$.

If you missed it, we have an Inception: The Musical blooper reel for you in which Megan sings about cock, and I completely topple over the dignity line (possibly by falling down a flight of stairs). Also, Chuck's cellphone tries to get in on the narrative action. And there's a training montage. YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT.

If you don't, have this baby monkey riding backwards on a pig instead.

Yesterday was super amazing for Dogboy & Justine fundraising and we're now past the 25% mark! If you go by the $75/day model we don't even have to raise any money today. If you go by obsessive averaging, we still need to raise $73.11 today to stay on target. All help is good help. We're also moving up on the Kickstarter site in terms of being popular, so all your clicking and helping helps too! More visibility! And, now that you've seen some more of mithrigil's awesome abilities as a song-writer (although, to be clear, she is not responsible for "Baby Monkey Riding Backwards on a Pig"), we hope you have one more reason to consider supporting us.

Bob Guccione's New York.

New York has become a central villain in this season's campaign ads. Let me tell you how enraged this makes me. I love this city. It's my blood. And I've lived a life of being told it's dangerous (when it hasn't been in over 20 years), of being told it was child abuse that I was raised here (fuck you), of being told that being from here means I'm godless, rude, have an ugly voice, or am a whore. And when that's not happening, it's exploit, exploit, exploit, which is one thing when it's people who are afraid to visit here loving Seinfeld and Friends and another when my city is used to justify mishandled military actions I don't agree with and revolting Islamiphobia.

I anthropomorphize everyhing, and nothing so much as New York City. And I hate watching people hurt her. Living in New York is like living in America's backstage story. My commute to work, my experience in the right sort of restaurants, my trips to museums and shopping -- it's all fucking filled with America's fanfiction and RPF. My mother worked at Tiffany. My father was an ad man. One of my best friends growing up was the daughter of a Broadway producer and we tap-danced in her house on the giant dimes from 42nd Street. It's hard to be a caretaker for so much dreaming. And it's hard to be the target of so much anger.

So that's what it means when people are cruel to my home. And that's what it means when people love it. And this is what I mean when I talk about being a finer thing. There's a precision in me that comes from living in and growing up in so strange a small kingdom. And it makes me very happy when others come here and choose it too. Because then we're all in a marvelous secret club, tiny and vast.

The subway in pictures. The transition in these from black and white to color is shocking. That transition happens in this chronicle in my lifetime. Those b&w shots of the city in the 70s and 80s really seem like another world -- more formal, more decayed, more dangerous. And it is absolutely the one I was raised in. The color stuff is like a strange sort of fake "now" -- I live in it, but it isn't true. It is a shame most of their 1970s pictures are in B&W -- those were garish, color-saturated times.

Why can't middle-aged women have long hair? I live in terror of the day that people will think I cut all mine off in deference to being a certain age. I'll tell you, at various times I've cut my hair to be more sophisticated, save time, mourn death, mourn a relationship, prep for a cosplay plan, and look more like someone I thought was hot. I never cut my hair to be good. And I almost punched a man in a bar once for telling me he thought I was so hot because when women cut off their hair it means they are finally over their fathers.

Tens of thousands of Finns have left the Finnish Lutheran-Evangelical Church due to anti-gay comments in a recent televised debate.

Speaking of religion: I believe that none of the major mainstream religions are inherently evil, although all religions may be used for evil purposes by extreme individuals, politicians, states, and organizing bodies or sects within those faiths. Which is to say I have no problem with essays attacking the leadership of the Catholic Church; the way religion is used by certain factions in the Israeli government; the exploitation of Christianity by US politicians; or the awful oppression that exists in states that are effectively Islamic dictatorships. However I do have a big fucking problem with "[Choose Your Faith] is [Choose Your Insult]." I find it personally, not abstractly, offensive. And I will tell you so when I see it. Similar abuse towards atheism and non-cult smaller faiths is equally not welcome here (It is, however, open season on Scientology, which has hurt people I care about). And yes, this comment mostly brought to you by the ongoing conversation about Wiscon and the Islamaphobia that comes with that discussion.

Comments

[ckd]

I have an odd relationship with NYC. I don't fear it, I love visiting it...and yet I don't know if I would ever want to move there. I think a bunch of that is just inertia + how comfortable I am with my current place (especially with a high concentration of jobs in my field starting literally a block away) rather than a dislike of NY itself.

(When I was looking for a change in 2008, one of my potential employers flew me down to NYC for interviews at their facility there since their Cambridge office was still too small to support their preferred interview process. I loved it, and if I'd been interested in relocating would have very seriously considered their NYC office instead of many of the other locations. London and/or Dublin might well have been ahead of it on my list, though....)