sundries

[rm]

It's trying to decide if it's snowing or raining. I dropped Patty off in Zurich earlier so she could do more shopping, and I had to go back to work, so -- sadface -- but we'll be together again on Friday! She should be at the airport to get back to the UK now.

This visit was SO GOOD and SO NEEDED. Last night, I spent many, many hours booking our UK stuff. This is the plan, because you care:

- I arrive in Cardiff on Friday evening, and she'll pick me up at the station (oh, hey, does anyone know how much a cab is between LCY and Paddington?)

- On Sunday we check into the St. Davids and do absolutely nothing for 24 hours.

- On Monday we check out of the St. Davids and then take a train to Hereford and the bus from there to Hay-on-Wye where we spend the night at The Swan.

- Tuesday we come back to Cardiff.

- Thursday, I cook Thanksgiving dinner for whoever is around.

- Sunday, we go down to London and stay at a ridiculous hotel. We also go to our favorite restaurant in Brick Lane and wander around Camdem.

- Monday we do something until about 2 or 3 when we have to head to Paddington, where she catches a train back to Cardiff, and I catch a train to Heathrow for my 8pm flight.

Needless to say, I spent A LOT of money on rail tickets last night.

Anyone have any opinion on taxis from LCY to Paddington around 1pm on a Friday? Cost and time? My bags are really heavy and I don't really want to use the tube for the trip, but if it's going to be a total clusterfuck to be above ground, I will.

One of the 6 variables that needed to be resolved for me to visit Patty for a week in India when that trip happens got resolved yesterday. There are, however, 5 other variables that remain unanswered, so we just don't know anything yet. If not this time, some time, but the possibility feels particularly portentious now, if complicated.

Random crap I need to get done: the TEDWomen contest thing; my DragonCon 2011 app.

This may make me a bad person, but South Park is about eleventy billion times funnier in German. This is less true of Family Guy and The Simpsons.

Thank you so much for the D&J support yesterday. We still have a lot of work both as artists and fundraisers to do, but it helped us start breathing again!

The engagement of Prince William has been announced. When Prince Charles married Diana, I was eight, and my best friend Elyse got up super early so she could watch it all on TV. It was a very, very big deal. It seems strange that next year we'll be watching something of some sort like that again.

Internet rage over new TSA policies are absolutely, positively making the news.

Fred Goldhaber was once the only teacher at the Harvey Milk School. He passed away on Monday.

The age at which people generally come out has gone from 37 to 17 in just two generations. When I tell you the world was different when I was 17, even in NYC, I really, really mean it.

Comments

[eredien]

Wow, I wish you'd been able to do that dissertation. I would have loved to see hard evidence for or against, particularly because I came out after I stopped living with my parents and always wonder, statistically, if it would have been better if I'd just dealt with that fallout earlier.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I don't think it will ever boil down to a single "do or don't" decision. Every situation is different. What I was frustrated about started with a conversation with a DSW who ran programs at the Harvey Milk School, who told me they didn't do family therapy because they didn't want to be perceived as advocating that kids come out. What a missed opportunity for some of them. I think clinicians need to have training on how to help youth look at all the variables (and really gather evidence rather than just going with a gut feeling - sometimes "Mom will cry and Dad will throw me out" is right on, and sometimes it's 180 degrees away from what happens), weigh them carefully, come to a decision, and make a safety plan in case coming out goes badly. (Or make a coping plan if the decision is to stay in the closet until they can live on their own.) Then use family therapy to help families negotiate the initial "stages of grief" that even very supportive ones often go through.

[eredien]

Definitely I agree with you when you say that there's never going to be any one-size-fits-all solution--I just would have loved to see some research, any research really, about this before I came out (went with my gut feeling, which was totally wrong). Even if I'm past that stage now I think giving people of all ages any kind of framework in which to weigh that decision can only help.

So sad re: Harvey Milk school anecdote! Of all the places to hear that...