sundries

It's best to just say I'm a little crazed today and leave it at that. Lots to do in lots of different arenas and I'm trying to not flip out about any of it.

Last night, at the seder, not only did my mom give Patty and I both 5 pound notes for finding the matzoh that she decided we shouldn't actually bother to search for, she forgot to put out the glass for Elijah. So when she was cutting the sponge cake and the platter part of the crystal cake stand just snapped right off, she blamed him and then hurriedly got on that. Yeah, go my family!

bodlon, for whom I have any number of peculiar descriptors because he is awesome, is rapelling down the side of a historic building to benefit the Special Olympics. He needs to raise 1K to do it. Go team Internet.

Meanwhile, my former roommate is jumping out of a perfectly good airplane to raise money for SOAR, Speaking Out Against Rape. Aside from the "hey, this is a good cause" factor, megan is a good cause. She's done some awesome stuff this year, and if you can contribute to this project, it would be a nice recognition of that. Go team Internet some more.

More students have been expelled from school in the wake of the case in which a bullying campaign led to a girl's suicide. Additionally, a tenth person may be charged in the case (currently nine are charged).

This is for Patty: Tomatoes!

A remarkable opinion piece from Sinead O'Connor on the ongoing Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals. It is remarkable not just for it' content, or, to some eyes, its author, but because its structure and cadence is quite elegant.

I was eighteen or nineteen years old when she ripped up the photo of the pope on TV. I remember watching it at home with my parents. Maybe I was just finishing high school or it was the last time I came home during break in college; I'm not sure. What I remember was a sense of dismay as it happened, because even though I didn't really get it, I knew there was something there to get, and most people wouldn't and wouldn't try, they'd just be angry.

Sinead O'Connor's first album, which was a sort of ubiquitous thing in queer and lesbian and feminist circles if you were eighteen or nineteen at the time, sounded like nothing else anyone had ever heard before. I remember having it waaaaaaaaay before anyone else I knew, because I'd read about it in British music magazines I had to hide from my parents. It was so angry and primal and I spent an endless amount of time listening on repeat to "Just Like U Said it Would B" and thinking I knew things, even though I was a virgin.

Sinead O'Connor taught me women are wrath with the unprettiness of much of her voice, and it's slightly peculiar now to be regarding her commentary on the Church with admiration for her skills as a memoirist.

Finally, Matt Smith has the experience every Whoniverse fan worries about, at least on their way to cons. He got stopped by airport security for carrying a sonic screwdriver.

and people ask why I identify with Jack

Apparently, it's because I keep missing the Doctor.

Seriously, this is happening the week I'm in the UK? It's nearly comical.

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