we're back + sundries

I'm writing this on the train back from Cold Spring. We stayed at the Pig Hill Inn, which we chose entirely for the canopy bed, wood-burning stove in the room, and the jacuzzi tub for two. We sat in the sexy, sexy bath and (well aside from the obvious) watched a lot of Buffy.

Cold Spring, as an idea, is totally, I confess, a place I am familiar with because my ex's family lived near here and so I spent a lot of time in this area in the '90s and have always thought it was supercute. But my question is this: when did Cold Spring become the gayest town on earth? In our non-explicitly LGBTQ B&B 4 of the 8 couples renting rooms were gay! Most of the waiters (including the one at the French restaurant who sang "We Are Family" to us) were gay, and it was sort of very bizarre and totally awesome. Also, Patty bought some beads at a place called "S&M Beads and Jewelry" and I remain stunned that such a store name did not involve nipple piercing in any way.

Across from the garden entrance to our B&B was a memorial for a guy who died at 17. It featured a range of plastic dinosaurs, some of which had been knocked over by the snow, and it made think of Wash from Firefly.

Anyway, it was awesome and relaxing and involved spectacular food (fresh gluten-free biscuits made for me each morning!). Soon we'll be back in the city, where we're going to do groceries for a nice dinner tonight and do some errands for the impending cat-arrival tomorrow, which I also finish up some work for several different parts of my life.

I did, btw, manage to get a last-minute proposal for Infinitus in, and I'm a bit more enthused about going now that I know the con has secured after hours access for con participants only to the theme park.

In other news:

I've seen a bit of "John Barrowman shouldn't go on vacation in Antigua because they have anti-gay laws" (either because he's a gay public figure and should make a statement or just because "wow, gay people, don't do that" -- both of which are valid responses, despite what I'm about to say below), and I've sort of felt an urge to comment, not because I particularly care about Barrowman's vacation habits, but because of our own over here. ( Read more... )

Meanwhile, speaking of anti-gay laws being enforced, here's bad news from Malawi and Kenya.

Trans people no longer considered mentally ill in France

The LGBTQ zombie anthology saga goes on and on and on. For those of you that haven't been playing along at home, there have now been at least four different reasons offered from the publisher that the anthology was supposedly pulled, a rumor that the anthology will be reopened by only for submissions from queer authors (what's the cred? what do I have to sign? CAN I HAVE MY GAY ID CARD NOW PLEASE... oh wait, that's CREEPYCAKES), and a whole lot of general unhappiness. Check out bodlon and jimhines on the ongoing saga, although they, like I, now have better things to be doing.

The 19th century personal ad.

A disconcerting and unsurprising piece on how history gets made.

Keep an eye on tw_itallchanges, more advance material has gone up in preparation for the virtual season start.