I Aintn't Dead
Nov. 24th, 2012 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* The Isrealis fired on a group of men marching towards the border. There are competing stories as to just what was going on. One man is dead and ten are injured. Despite this, the ceasefire was still on when last I checked.
* There's also a bunch of things going on with Egyptian politics, that I'm too tired to properly explain. Short form: the Egyptian President made a declaration that looks like he's seizing powers he's not entitled to, putting himself over the judiciary. As he already has the executive and legislative powers, it is understandably scary as fuck to sane people. The moderates are furious and protesting in large numbers. I'm seeing various casualty figures in the 80-100 range, but as it's ongoing, one can only expect it to get worse. This is seriously bad.
* If you are curious about what's going on in the Congo, but lack background, here's a useful timeline to help out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13286306
* The truth about the filibuster:
* "Church of England, Parliamentary disapproval and Gay Marriage:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2012/11/church-of-england-parliamentary.html
* "U.S. Deficit Shrinking At Fastest Pace Since WWII, Before Fiscal Cliff:" http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/112012-634082-federal-deficit-falling-fastest-since-world-war-ii.htm#ixzz2CwY5FHEP
* "White House TDOR Trans Meeting:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/11/white-house-tdor-trans-meeting.html
* Greenwick found, "GLAAD Examines Ten Years of Transgender Images on Television; More than Half Were Negative or Defamatory:" http://www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-examines-ten-years-transgender-images-television-more-half-were-negative-or-defamatory
* It looks like the European explorers brought the epidemic that killed off East Coast Native Americans by the village that made it easier for Pilgrims to get a foothold in new England. I am uncomfortable with the wording in this article as it makes it sound like a good thing instead of a horrible tragedy, but it's an important bit of history:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/11/leptospirosis_and_pilgrims_the_wampanoag_may_have_been_killed_off_by_an.html
* I had a very weird yesterday. I was having one of my bad days as far as physical inconveniences go. Squirrel was too tired to go at all. Tanya's oven died at the very end of last week, so at the last minute, she merged her dinner party with that of the owner of gaming store with whom she is friends. This meant, instead of a small gathering with Tanya, her intelligent teenaged children, and a couple of guys who's conversation I enjoy, it was a massive gathering with a lot of people I didn't know and Football games blaring in the background, making conversation difficult. I did my best. I grew up in Philly, where sport are practically religion, so I have lots of practice with nodding and smiling, but my patience is limited when it comes to point spreads and detail. I tried to get them to let me help in the kitchen, as the last thing I wanted to do was sit on the sofa with the boys. No dice. I did manage to periodically turn the conversation to something more interesting, but it was essentially two hours of me watching men in tight pants on TV because of the inevitable dinner delay. Dinner was better, but had it's awkward moments, given the youth of the youngest of Tanya's daughter and the lack of filter some of the other dinner guests displayed regarding stories of blackout drinking and drug use. It was a weird code switching situation for me, as my instinct is to blend socially where I can, but I taught the older girls when they were younger. It did not help that the relationships were unclear as far as the other host's friends. On arival, I was greeted by two college aged people. The girl turned out to be the daughter of a football fan. I at first thought the boy might be her boyfriend, but he turned out to be gay, so I'm guessing friend? They liked the pride buttons on my coat. Anyway, after dinner, the adult men were watching football, and some of us were sitting around the table telling ghost stories. It was going fine. People periodically drifted in and out. At one point the boy asked me about the economic crisis, and I explained some economics 101 to him and a variety of things relating to economic policies here and abroad. In the middle of this, the father of the girl stormed in from the football game and ordered the boy out of the house. ?!? We were both startled. It was not his house and our conversation had been innocuous. I asked Tanya later, but she had no clue either. I was wary at this point, but I'd brought two pies and I wanted a slice, damnit, so I stuck close to the women and one of the guys I like to talk to from among Tanya's friends. The girl's father had almost no affect (I think either a stroke or some mild cerebral palsy or other form of partial facial paralysis), so I couldn't tell if he was angry at me. He was small and also a bit gimpy, so I figured I'd be all right if he came at me, but the last thing I wanted was a fight in the middle of this particular house. He seemed friendly enough, but he'd seemed fine right before he scruffed the boy out of the house too. I did finally get a good conversation in with the dude I'd most wanted to talk to, though I hardly got to talk to Tanya at all and the other guy had football brain, so was no fun. After pie, it was time to get the car back and I was relieved to be going. It turned out one of the twins wanted out just as bad. By this point, I was in enough pain that standing was a serious challenge. The college aged girl came up to me as I was leaving and asked for preferred pronouns. I gave her "ze, zir, zim," then added "Well spotted." I have a trans button, but you need to know what the symbol is for it to mean anything. I dropped the twin home, as it's not far out of the way and I could see how desperate she was. We had a nice chat and I did make it home in time for Squirrel to eat the dinner I brought him and get off to work in plenty of time. I did the bare minimum animal maintenance before going straight to bed. I am still unsettled by yesterday.
* I slept a lot. Apparently the pain really wore me out. I woke to discover a cat (I'm guessing Hector, but I can't swear to it), managed to worm a packet of treats out of the drawer and bite it open, gorging and then vomiting all over the floor of at least two rooms. The kitchen was also trashed in my sleep. I decided to go see Argo before dealing with it. I then picked up replacement treats, some OTC meds I was low on, and Chinese food because I needed to eat before trying to deal with the mess. I'm making progress, but there's a stack of things still needing doing.
* Argo was beautiful, btw. It really looked and felt like the '70's. I don't just mean the obvious things like the clothes and hair, but the small details like the pervasiveness of ashtrays, the details of flying, the phones, and the station logos. It was surreal for me. This was history I've lived. For sure, I didn't know the classified stuff, but I watched a lot of that news coverage real time. I and my friends owned a lot of those toys. My home room teacher had a hostage countdown thing on the current events bulletin board that showed how many days they'd been held. I watched the movie with my mouth mostly agape because it really felt like looking through a window into that particular time. All these little details that I hadn't thought about in years, the smokiness of the air, the specific news shots realistically replicated. It was eerie. I admit, I am uncomfortable with casting a white person to play a latino lead and I remain so, despite how well the film was acted. I have no other qualms. I'm kind of glad I saw it in a theater because of all the details that would be hard to see on a small screen and because the audience reaction was fascinating. They clapped and cheered and really bought into it in a way that is rare outside of live performance. Maybe it was eerily real to them too. If you go, do watch the first half of the credits as there is some impressive stuff there.
* Chand Baori, Stepwell: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/chand-baori.html
* There's also a bunch of things going on with Egyptian politics, that I'm too tired to properly explain. Short form: the Egyptian President made a declaration that looks like he's seizing powers he's not entitled to, putting himself over the judiciary. As he already has the executive and legislative powers, it is understandably scary as fuck to sane people. The moderates are furious and protesting in large numbers. I'm seeing various casualty figures in the 80-100 range, but as it's ongoing, one can only expect it to get worse. This is seriously bad.
* If you are curious about what's going on in the Congo, but lack background, here's a useful timeline to help out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13286306
* The truth about the filibuster:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* "Church of England, Parliamentary disapproval and Gay Marriage:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2012/11/church-of-england-parliamentary.html
* "U.S. Deficit Shrinking At Fastest Pace Since WWII, Before Fiscal Cliff:" http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/112012-634082-federal-deficit-falling-fastest-since-world-war-ii.htm#ixzz2CwY5FHEP
* "White House TDOR Trans Meeting:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/11/white-house-tdor-trans-meeting.html
* Greenwick found, "GLAAD Examines Ten Years of Transgender Images on Television; More than Half Were Negative or Defamatory:" http://www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-examines-ten-years-transgender-images-television-more-half-were-negative-or-defamatory
* It looks like the European explorers brought the epidemic that killed off East Coast Native Americans by the village that made it easier for Pilgrims to get a foothold in new England. I am uncomfortable with the wording in this article as it makes it sound like a good thing instead of a horrible tragedy, but it's an important bit of history:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/11/leptospirosis_and_pilgrims_the_wampanoag_may_have_been_killed_off_by_an.html
* I had a very weird yesterday. I was having one of my bad days as far as physical inconveniences go. Squirrel was too tired to go at all. Tanya's oven died at the very end of last week, so at the last minute, she merged her dinner party with that of the owner of gaming store with whom she is friends. This meant, instead of a small gathering with Tanya, her intelligent teenaged children, and a couple of guys who's conversation I enjoy, it was a massive gathering with a lot of people I didn't know and Football games blaring in the background, making conversation difficult. I did my best. I grew up in Philly, where sport are practically religion, so I have lots of practice with nodding and smiling, but my patience is limited when it comes to point spreads and detail. I tried to get them to let me help in the kitchen, as the last thing I wanted to do was sit on the sofa with the boys. No dice. I did manage to periodically turn the conversation to something more interesting, but it was essentially two hours of me watching men in tight pants on TV because of the inevitable dinner delay. Dinner was better, but had it's awkward moments, given the youth of the youngest of Tanya's daughter and the lack of filter some of the other dinner guests displayed regarding stories of blackout drinking and drug use. It was a weird code switching situation for me, as my instinct is to blend socially where I can, but I taught the older girls when they were younger. It did not help that the relationships were unclear as far as the other host's friends. On arival, I was greeted by two college aged people. The girl turned out to be the daughter of a football fan. I at first thought the boy might be her boyfriend, but he turned out to be gay, so I'm guessing friend? They liked the pride buttons on my coat. Anyway, after dinner, the adult men were watching football, and some of us were sitting around the table telling ghost stories. It was going fine. People periodically drifted in and out. At one point the boy asked me about the economic crisis, and I explained some economics 101 to him and a variety of things relating to economic policies here and abroad. In the middle of this, the father of the girl stormed in from the football game and ordered the boy out of the house. ?!? We were both startled. It was not his house and our conversation had been innocuous. I asked Tanya later, but she had no clue either. I was wary at this point, but I'd brought two pies and I wanted a slice, damnit, so I stuck close to the women and one of the guys I like to talk to from among Tanya's friends. The girl's father had almost no affect (I think either a stroke or some mild cerebral palsy or other form of partial facial paralysis), so I couldn't tell if he was angry at me. He was small and also a bit gimpy, so I figured I'd be all right if he came at me, but the last thing I wanted was a fight in the middle of this particular house. He seemed friendly enough, but he'd seemed fine right before he scruffed the boy out of the house too. I did finally get a good conversation in with the dude I'd most wanted to talk to, though I hardly got to talk to Tanya at all and the other guy had football brain, so was no fun. After pie, it was time to get the car back and I was relieved to be going. It turned out one of the twins wanted out just as bad. By this point, I was in enough pain that standing was a serious challenge. The college aged girl came up to me as I was leaving and asked for preferred pronouns. I gave her "ze, zir, zim," then added "Well spotted." I have a trans button, but you need to know what the symbol is for it to mean anything. I dropped the twin home, as it's not far out of the way and I could see how desperate she was. We had a nice chat and I did make it home in time for Squirrel to eat the dinner I brought him and get off to work in plenty of time. I did the bare minimum animal maintenance before going straight to bed. I am still unsettled by yesterday.
* I slept a lot. Apparently the pain really wore me out. I woke to discover a cat (I'm guessing Hector, but I can't swear to it), managed to worm a packet of treats out of the drawer and bite it open, gorging and then vomiting all over the floor of at least two rooms. The kitchen was also trashed in my sleep. I decided to go see Argo before dealing with it. I then picked up replacement treats, some OTC meds I was low on, and Chinese food because I needed to eat before trying to deal with the mess. I'm making progress, but there's a stack of things still needing doing.
* Argo was beautiful, btw. It really looked and felt like the '70's. I don't just mean the obvious things like the clothes and hair, but the small details like the pervasiveness of ashtrays, the details of flying, the phones, and the station logos. It was surreal for me. This was history I've lived. For sure, I didn't know the classified stuff, but I watched a lot of that news coverage real time. I and my friends owned a lot of those toys. My home room teacher had a hostage countdown thing on the current events bulletin board that showed how many days they'd been held. I watched the movie with my mouth mostly agape because it really felt like looking through a window into that particular time. All these little details that I hadn't thought about in years, the smokiness of the air, the specific news shots realistically replicated. It was eerie. I admit, I am uncomfortable with casting a white person to play a latino lead and I remain so, despite how well the film was acted. I have no other qualms. I'm kind of glad I saw it in a theater because of all the details that would be hard to see on a small screen and because the audience reaction was fascinating. They clapped and cheered and really bought into it in a way that is rare outside of live performance. Maybe it was eerily real to them too. If you go, do watch the first half of the credits as there is some impressive stuff there.
* Chand Baori, Stepwell: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/chand-baori.html
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Date: 2012-11-24 10:14 am (UTC)I listen to public radio when I'm home every minute of the day to get the latest on everything and I have to say that since I got rid of my cable and landline ( well, that was to save 135 dollars a month...I have a long-standing contempt of the cable companies who keep changing prices and raising them. When I first moved here, 65.00 was all that needed to get all the cable channels from Charter and now, you have to have the bundle thing...with internet, phone and cable, ( and limited cable at that with about a dozen channels) it cost me 165.00. I am no longer eligible for my food stamp EBT card, so I had to cut corners somewhere, and I don't like watching tv much nor do I use my landline. I watch whatever I want if I'm at my parents. So I got rid of everything except high speed internet and that costs 40 bucks a month, saving me 125 in useless stuff. The radio is playing the news :)