rm | May. 7th, 2010

Buy stuff, help with liver transplant:

debsliverlovers. Come on, you know you want original art from Thomas Canty or Terri Windling.

There is also fanfic to fight breastcancer and Writers for Nashville.

This has been a terrible, terrible week for things and people in the world that need our help. It can get overwhelming. It can be hard to keep up. I'm struggling to just spread the word on all the sorts of things I like to spread the word on. It's okay. Just do what you can, if you can.

Appalling anti-Muslim story out of Jacksonville. via

karjack

Today Patty and I head up to Essex for the weekend for, among other things, The Sailing Masters Ball.

Weirdly, the whole thing has put me in a nostalgic mood regarding the Bustle Ball I went to without her (I think she was on a dig) after judging a fencing tournament (Oh god, fencing. There's a mess I don't know how to fix, because I miss it so much, but I'm also way less stressed and not having my gender, intelligence, value, personal body awareness challenged inappropriately every two seconds anymore). I was in an unspeakably foul mood and exhausted from travel (I had to take a train back down to NYC from the tournament and then up to New Haven), and the night ended in me on my hands and knees in my finery scrubbing scuff marks off the floor while I made Ianto time-travel jokes after I'd seen all of one episode of Torchwood. I expect this to be more pleasant but just as funny.

I also wonder, a bit, how I'll be received, as this is a large event with a crowd I don't mostly know, and my experience of historical (especially American history) reenactment types are that they are either awesome liberal pervs who adore me or wacked out conservatives who think I'm going to hell for wearing trousers (and let's not even discuss what's in my trousers, shall we?¹).

Tangentally to all of that, my hair is getting a bit shaggy again, but I'm torn about cutting it. I hate when it's not neat, but it's more flexibly femme when I tolerate it at this length. Plus, I'm rocking my fake sideburns today, which I actually don't normally do, because it makes my ridiculous long face look even longer.

So the stock market yesterday! OMFG. I assumed when it was happening that it was some sort of Greece-related cascade. But, nope! Some idiot confused a B with an M and made a whole shitload of companies (including one my mom owns stock in) be worth $0 for a brief period. People made and lost millions and now all the wacky trades are being cancelled. I am in awe.

The UK election, which I got a small taste of while in London is fascinating to me.

First, I feel really bad for you guys going through the type of fraught uncertainty we experienced in 2000, and I hope it works out better for you all than it did for us.

Second, it was very weird to be in London during the first televised priministerial debate. So much of the coverage was about how to make it look like a movie, like in the US.

Third, I find this photograph eerie and unpleasant. It would make a good comic book panel.

Fourth... it's incorrect for me to say class, I suppose, since in the US we do mean it differently than its meant in the UK (here class is a nearly pure function of money except in certain small pockets; this addles me particularly because I grew up in one of those pockets), but I am interested in a certain degree of what, as an American, appears as honesty to me in terms of who your politicians have contempt for. I don't see, from my perspective, wealthy men who hate the poor trying to convince us they are average guys with mediocre attainments and sympathies for those making minimum wage. Oh no, you know who the candidates think the enemy is over there. At least comparatively. Here's you have the richest, most elitist dudes telling you their just folks, and anyone with an education is out to get you. My perspective may be wonked, but that's how it feels from here.

Fifth? Best UK election coverage so far other than that weird wrestling candidate infographic the BBC has going on? Paul Cornell on Twitter. I mean, if you can stand him talking about various candidates mating. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Tom Price, who's a bit more obviously cranky, is also pretty good.

Sixth: Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality. That's all I'm saying. You have a country with a Zombie/Vampire rights party and people are somehow puzzled by the Ianto Jones memorial at Mermaid Quay?!?!?!?! Let me repeat this folks, Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality. via

beccaelizabeth.

Screed about unusual names. On one hand, I do find a lot of stuff people name their kids bizarre, and my own name can be a hassle. But really? Some cranky dude telling me my life's been ruined forever? Only if there were more assholes like him.

¹ Long, albeit somewhat obvious, story referenced solely to torment

stakebait.