sundries

[rm]

Still tired and useless and trying to decide if I'm people-yes or people-no. I'm hoping today will be a lot more productive.

Anyone have any recs on where I can find the best prices on SJA box sets? I need to pick up all of it for that chapter I'm working on.

Today is World AIDS Day. We still need to have urgency about fighting this disease. For those of us in the US, in the UK, in Europe who remember its emergence, it's easy to think that we've kind of have it under control now since the drugs work better now, more people use condoms, and, for those of us in certain communities whole generations of loss, are now just part of history. For younger people who don't remember the emergence of AIDS, it's easy to see it as really bad, but not catastrophic, because you didn't see whole communities wiped out. But AIDS is still wiping out communities, harming marginalized populations, and continues to spread because of fear, stigma, poor policy, the desire to blame, and people still not giving enough of a shit about gay men, people of color, women, trans people, sex workers, drug users and the poor. And that's just in the US, the UK and Europe. Africa has massive infection rates and not even remotely enough medication to go around. India and China are also seeing significant rates of infection along with social stigma and massive barriers to treatment. AIDS is still a crisis that feeds political and social instability, underscores the gross inequalities of our global and national economies, and highlights too often the people and places we think of as disposable. If you don't need the change in your pocket to get by today, consider please donating to an AIDS-related charity, and please boost the signal. While you're at it, have some history: 30 Voices. 30 Years.

55 years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. For those of us who weren't even alive then, the significance of that action may be hard to imagine, but it's important that we try. The work continues.

The dueling beauty pageants of Colombia and what they say about money, class, race and beauty.

The tram rides again.

I fricking hate celiac disease. Sometime in the last 36 hours I ingested something that got me. Choices: cross contamination in the gluten-free Welsh cakes; the gluten-free meal (chicken tikka!) on British Airways wasn't really gluten-free; trace gluten on the cats from the cat food. That I even have to think this way: Ugh.

Meanwhile, there's some health stuff going on with my father that has, FINALLY, gotten me to convince my parents to get him tested for celiac. So we'll see where that goes.

Are you in Boston this weekend? Rogue Burlesque brings you a night of superhero-themed burlesque. It makes perfect sense really: all that ripping off clothes so as to look sexier while fighting crime.

ellen_kushner's The Man With the Knives is now available to read online for free and is being reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. I know there were people who couldn't afford or otherwise access the limited-edition chapbook, but now everyone can read it! And I can finally talk about why the chapbook is so cool as a thing in light of the plot of the story. But! I'll give you a few days to read it first.

Yesterday spiderine recommended this Sherlock fic: The Whore of Babylon Was a Perfectly Nice Girl, and now I'm recommending it to you. I watched the show having NO IDEA how one would navigate Sherlock's sexuality or brain or the way the canon keeps having the "We're not on a date!" conversation (that starts funny, becomes annoying, and is eventually just odd). Having the intellect he does makes living in the world strange, challenging and frustrating for Sherlock, and this fic shows that without diagnosing him or succumbing to any of the fandom tropes I don't have a lot of time for (he's not super innocent; he doesn't know himself perfectly; he's not feminized, but queered). The dialogue is amazing; the sex where it occurs is integral to the plot; John is AWESOME; there's lots of little case details and weird experiments; Mycroft is everywhere. Really, really good. May unsettle/offend a few people in a few places -- those places rang true to me in terms of the characters and are certainly less offensive than the show itself can be, but YMMV. I read this listening to Scissor Sisters' "Sex and Violence" on repeat and now I fear I am ruined for anything else in the fandom.

The money quote, for me:

"Most scholars believe the whore of Babylon was a coded reference to Rome, a bustling, metropolitan city of the time. If you compared me to London, I'd take it as a compliment. This is the same thing."

Comments

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

That is awesome about your dad.

The cat did put her ear in your mouth yesterday. There may have been bread crumbs on it.

Superhero burlesque!

[rm.livejournal.com]

OH. IT WAS THE CAT. I GOT GLUTEN FROM A CAT.

Sadly the thing with my dad is that he fell down in teh street yesterday and hailed a cab to get home, but couldn't really even get up to get in the cab or out of it. So he's decided to see a nutritionist and I was like "I HAVE A GENETIC DISEASE THAT STOPS ME FROM ABSORBING NUTRIENTS OR BUILDING MUSCLE EFFECTIVELY AND ONE OF YOU GAVE IT TO ME, HELLO."

Now, granted, my dad probably fell down because he's old and recovering from a stroke, end of story. But, this is still good that we're going to get this sorted.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

BREADED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

OH WAIT

How old is your dad?

[rm.livejournal.com]

late-70s

[trifles.livejournal.com]

The Whore of Babylon Was a Perfectly Nice Girl is indeed an excellent fic -- I was originally charmed by out_there's Let You Kiss Me, but this one is just fabulous.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Just catching up on it now and it's remarkable how so in-character yet how PLAUSIBLE it all reads.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I submitted to the LIC One-Act Play festival! We shall see if it gets accepted! I remember seeing DOGBOY AND JUSTINE there and being very impressed!

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

- Yay for testing your dad at last! Although boo for him feeling ill enough that he finally caved.

- I LOVE THAT FIC HAVE NOT YET HAD TIME TO REC IT. For all the reasons you put more eloquently here.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Are there levels of celiac in terms of the traces of gluten one can tolerate? You seem to be on the order of "effectively a serious wheat allergy", whereas another friend of mine basically treated it like a lactose intolerance, where slight traces and cross-contamination didn't bother her, she just couldn't eat bagels.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Any consumption of gluten for someone with celiac disease causes damage to their intestinal linings and impairs their ability to absorb nutrients and build muscle -- regardless of whether they experience symptoms or not. This exposure to gluten also highly increases a celiac's risks of developing a number of types of cancers or epilepsy.

I did not have symptoms severe enough to lead to a coherent picture of diagnosis until 5 years ago, however I have permanent neurological and dental damage from the disease. No one ever put it together until I basically seemed like I had food poisoning for a month.

A person can have a gluten-intolerance like you describe, where gluten causes some symptoms of varying degrees and no other damages. A person with celiac disease, whether symptomatic or not, cannot tolerate any gluten.

Realistically, it is impossible to avoid all gluten -- cross contamination from shipping bins for food is a big issue. Europe generally requires a gluten-free food contain less than 20ppm gluten. For some people who are very symptomatic, even this can cause problems. I can usually endure that, but for people with celiac disease, cooking fresh, local foods in a gluten-free environment is the unmeetable ideal.

A single crumb of bread will put me in bed for a day or more. Something cooked with a tablespoon of soy sauce containing wheat will make me feel like crap, but I can still do stuff with a lot of pepto and will-power. Some celiac's can tolerate more gluten in their daily lives, but it's still a long-term risk.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I used to have terrible nightmares when I was a tween that I'd contracted AIDS. I'd wake up just after yelling "But I'm a virgin!" (in the dream, not out loud, thankfully).

Yay, tram!

...trace gluten on the cats from the cat food. That I even have to think this way: Ugh. -- DAMN. Hope you feel better soon.

"The Whore of Babylon..." is a fantastic story, and you picked my favorite line of dialogue. The scenes that stuck in my memory, though, were the mentions of the funeral (being vague to avoid spoiling those who haven't read the fic yet) -- Sherlock telling John (there's an element of black comedy that recalls certain real-life events), and Mycroft's reaction when he realizes that Sherlock told John.

If we are, uh, pimping Sherlock fic...

[merrycaepa (from livejournal.com)]

"September" does something with gender and power and genderbend that are all sorts of fun. Genderbend in Sherlock is especially interesting, I think, because while We As Society kind of suck at dealing with men like Sherlock, we're even worse at women like Sherlock.

Re: If we are, uh, pimping Sherlock fic...

[merrycaepa (from livejournal.com)]

Well, hell. That is not the fic I meant to rec (sorry, it's finals; I'm not actually awake at the moment). I think I was actually aiming for "Categories" (although the above is also well worth a gander).

Re: If we are, uh, pimping Sherlock fic...

[merrycaepa (from livejournal.com)]

Also, I don't know why things are bold...fml, I'm going to bed.

[riverrocks.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the words about World AIDS Day.
I want to add trans people to the list of folks people are still not giving enough of a shit about, who get erased from the privilege equation of important enough for funding and concern. In the US, it has taken at least fifteen years of persistent activism to get the federal research and funding agencies to change the wording on their surveys and other research projects so that the data gathered has a chance of reflecting the existence of trans people, much less assess their needs around HIV/AIDS prevention and care. I came out in the 80s, and watched way too many of my elders die long before they were old. For the last ten years, I've been seeing similar (though slower, when people have access to medical care, and the meds work for them) impact on the trans communities, particularly young poor trans women of color, but also, gay trans men. Just as it is commonplace for people in the US to ignore or discount the impacts of HIV/AIDS in other parts of the world, in my experience people without the experience of living with a chronic illness or disability (or close connection to someone who is) tend to gloss over the losses imposed on both the individual and the community when a person is living with an illness like AIDS.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Updating post. Thank you for this.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Oh, goddammit, now we have a show to see tomorrow night because superhero-themed burlesque is in a building in Harvard Square, and, you know, Harvard Square is not so far from Kendall Square, and wife is coming into town with me tomorrow, and she is in Harvard Square, and... yeah.

Also, superheroes.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

That's my favourite quote from that fic too :)

Damn right, Sherlock is queered. I actually loved that scene in the restaurant. It reminded me of conversations I've had with people.

Sundries

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User kdsorceress referenced to your post from Sundries (http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/557173.html) saying: [...] everbody. What rm has to say on the subject [...]

[stef-tm.livejournal.com]

Shameless pimping - if people are seeking an AIDS related charity, I am participating in the AIDS Lifecycle 10 (from SF to LA) in June.

http://www.tofighthiv.org/goto/stefanieharvey

Self promotion aside, boo on the hidden gluten. That is completely not fun. I am allergic to all fish and seafood and have come to hold any restaurant sauce suspect.

World AIDS Day

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User teleen_fiction referenced to your post from World AIDS Day (http://teleen-fiction.livejournal.com/161887.html) saying: [...] the privilege of those who still ignore this epidemic or act as though this issue is dead or solved [...]

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the 30 Voices/30 Years link. I've been quietly considering how my community started dying just as I discovered it, more or less, for several months now.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The problem with getting SJA is that only seasons 1 & 2 are available in America. To get the rest you need a UK retailer (no idea who's cheapest; I tend to do Amazon.co.uk, although maybe Borders over there is having a pre-Christmas sale?)

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Randomly: the ink I'm using to block print seasonal cards is labeled gluten-free.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

Thank you for rec'ing spiderine's story; it was wonderful. And it prompted me to spend several days trying to compose a coherent response in my own journal because it hit so hard.

http://alumiere.livejournal.com/426827.html

[gement.livejournal.com]

The Whore of Babylon fic made my heart hurt in all the right ways. Trying to have The Conversations with Holmes is always where such fics have always fallen down, because you *can't*. It's like trying to have The Conversations with a tornado, or possibly a box of broken glass. This got that, really really got that.

And dear God. To quote Clerks, "Hey, try not to suck any dick on the way through the parking lot!" Handling that with such... surgical precision just knocked the breath out of me.

So I'll be checking out this show, since it seems they caught enough of the desperate insane energy of the original characters. Thanks for helping me find my way to it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Fair warning: The second episode is so racist as to be mindboggling and the script is also loose in a really frustrating way (I content that any tightening done on the script would have immediately eliminated some of the racism out of pure common sense, but that tightening never happened).

Also, Sherlock has a few moments where he is so shockingly abrasive to women that some people have sworn off the show for the misogyny. I found it to be in character and acceptable, but YMMV.

The first episode, however, is a thing of near perfection.