Lancelot

Lancelot finally told us it was time, so we took him in this afternoon. I held him the whole time, and he just hugged me or stayed close.. He'd been having so many problems.... I'm having a really hard time with it all, right now. But I can't do any of that justice here, so I'm just... not going to try. But I thought I should let you know.



And I want you to know how wonderful a cat he was. I can't find words enough for that, either, but I have to try. There will never be anyone like Lancelot again. I only got to know him for the last three and a half years of his fifteen, but I love him very, very much. He was so deeply wonderful, and loving, and bright, and sweet. Lancelot the brave, the loyal! And for the last few days we were closer again than we'd been in a long time, since just about the beginning, and it was very special. I'm very grateful for it.

I miss him so much, already. I kind of can't believe it. I was there, but it's not... real, somehow.

He was so soft. He had wonderful red fur, and a strange tip to his tail, where one of the bones at the end was misshapen, and soft, soft paws he didn't want anyone to touch, and bright, huge eyes, and perky whiskers, and he was beautiful. And he was so sweet, when he wasn't being a total grump, and loved new people, and was friendly. He got me through the few weekends Chris had to be away, and I got him through them, too. He loved fellow redheads (lucky me!) but hated classical soprano singing ( =the source of a lot of our problems). But he didn't mind me singing "Old Deuteronomy" in my deepest voice while holding him (he didn't like being picked up, either, but that was okay).

He loved cheezits, and tried to steal them, even though they tended to make him sick.

He was pretty pukey all his life, to tell the truth. Nobody could figure out why.

He had a wonderful motorboat purr. He would trill his meows, by kind of purring through them? Like "Prrrow? Brr, brr, BrrrrAWow." Sometimes if he was trotting down the stairs, he'd make a little "Prrt, prrt, prrt" when he hit the steps. Especially if he was excited. He'd trot or stand with his tail straight up and bushy--fluffy, fluffy tail--and just trill. It is the sweetest meow you've ever heard.

He didn't like the song we wrote him, but we did.

A lot of nights, especially in the last handful of months when he hadn't been feeling as well, we'd all sleep like this: <<< Chris behind me, Lance curled up by my stomach. I never had the heart to move him if I needed to move the covers or anything. He also liked sleeping up on my hip, or up on my butt if I was on my stomach.

There's a lot more to say. I just don't know quite what all at the moment. But Lancelot had more nicknames than we could count, and I'm going to try to catalog as many of them as I can. He tended to respond--I don't think he knew them all (how could he?) but he knew us and he knew when we were talking to him. You'll see some themes--they were all said with love (even the ones you're not sure about).

Lancelot, Lance-without-pants, Lance with No Pants On, Lancelot-sans-culottes, Lance-apot, Lance-apotamus, Him, Bunky, Himapot, Bunkerpot, Bunkertot, Stinky, Stinker, Shtinker, Shtinky, Shtinkertot, Shtinkertoy, Bunkertoy, Bunkyboy, Lance-a-bunk, Lance-a-maphone, Bunk, The Bunk, The Boy, Our Bunky Boy, Our Bunky Baby, Hey My Baby, Bunker, Mr. Him, Mr. Bunk, the butt-cat, Mr. Stink, Mr. Butt, Shpoongy, Spunky, Shpunky, Spunky Winnebago, Nummy-Muffin-Cocoa-Butter, Butterscotch Pudding, Circus Peanut, the puppy-cat, My Whumpa, Whumpum, Bumpa, Stinkum, Stinkus, Wumba, motorboat, Lancey, Sir Lancelot, Sir Pukesalot, Sir Bunksalot, Punk, Punky, Punker, Binky, Monkey, Minky.

And there are some I'm forgetting. And there were some that rose and fell in moments.

But this is why his song says "and hold and love and cry out, all my names--many names" because we did.

Edit: Link to the wonderful entry about Lance that Chris wrote a couple days ago, about his younger life.

A Snapshot in Nerdery

I'm having one of Those times. You know, where everything around me is addressed via nerdishness.

Knitting
Knitting is entirely a process of making slipknots. This delights me. For about a day and a half, I was going to change the name of my journal to "A Million Little Slipknots." Needless to say, I'm a little obsessed. I've made two scarves, wristbands for Chris and I, I'm a third of the way through a very stripey purse, and I'm in the midst of two different throws. I can only go in straight lines, but I know the two most basic stitches, I can change skein and change color, and that's a good start.

Politics
Bravo, Iowa! Now New Hampshire, take the hint and behave. This is the first time, in all the presidential elections I've had a chance to participate in, that my candidate's doing well, and has actually got a good chance of still being in it by the time I get to vote in the fucking primary. (Let's hear it for the 12 state bang-up to come on Feb 5th! Fingers crossed! California may even get a say, for once!) I actually sat up and watched Caucus-coverage, and I will do it again on Tuesday. I am actually feeling Hopeful.

Weather
I'm also watching storm progress, because we're finally getting rain--and more importantly, we're getting snowpack in the upper els. Which means: We May Not Die of Drought. This is very exciting! Also, I've been out trying to scrape under a foot of water for whatever's blocking the drains in our complex, so that maybe our garages don't flood, now that the street's a river. I've braved it further to set a couple dozen houseplants out (waste not, &c).

Musicals: Reefer Madness
I have watched this probably in the neighborhood of 18 times, over the last few weeks. Certainly parts of it. I think I have most of it memorized, and I catch myself singing it pretty much incessantly. My continuing to be alive is a miracle of Chris's amazing patience. The making of and the commentary I've watched twice each, and I was about to go for a third run through when Chris got home and spared us all. It has to go back soon (so I'll just be left with my VHS copy, which has no extras); this is especially fortunate for my love, since I made him sit through the bloodfest (which I quite enjoyed) of Sweeney Todd, and I think he's probably up to the gills in musicals, and he deserves a little break.

Sci-Fi
In addition to the lovely Cats-and-Tin-Man-fan I've met, I've been giggling like a geek over the fact that I met two--TWO--other people, right there in the Tin Man fandom, who are fellow Lexx and Farscape lovers (although still no Bab5 love). And a nice thing about leching for Tin Man is that there's no shortage of Firefly love around there, either. Thank you, SciFi channel, for bringing us together. Now start running the goddamned reruns.

And have I mentioned knitting? What about Reefer Madness, and other assorted Alan Cumming obsessions? (His novel was a raging marvel of excess, by the way, and I loved it.) And my own smutty writing? (But that's a tale for another blog.)

So, that's pretty much life right now. Sick kitty, back to work on Monday, nice holidays, our favorite dinner-and-movie buddies moved in across the street--on balance, things are good. I hope all of y'all are doing well, out there. LOVE

P.S. Additional Blogspot-Only nerdery: This is my 64th post! 64 is, if I haven't told you 800 times, my very, very favorite number. (Everything I'm knitting I'm knitting from 64 or 36 stitches. Seriously.)

Friend of Dorothy, and Jelly Beans

(Usually I'd leave this fangirl stuff on the Other Journal, but...)

Why, all of a sudden, am I in love with Zooey Deschanel?

My first time through watching Tin Man (wherein she played Dorothy Gale) I could have done her bodily harm. I thought it was a weak performance, and I was completely bugged.

The second time through, I decided that in 90% of that miniseries she's actually absolutely delightful (and only just a little flaky in a couple spots), and that provided she wasn't supposed to express deep pain, I'd gladly see her in just about anything else later. And now I'm wondering if it's just a matter of weak spots in the script that she had to deal with, and (once) a different sense of what was going on than I had.

I'm craving her stuff, now. We downloaded a version of her singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Leon Redbone, and now I'm googling her with vim and vigour.

Wtf?

Once upon a post-Easter clearance sale, I bought a bag of jelly beans for like a half a buck, and took them home. They were a special promotional bag, that had websites for the Naughty Naughty Pets on them, and they had not sold well, so they were in one of those carts in the back of an aisle marked %75 off, or something, and I wanted jelly beans. The first ones I had tasted funny, and I went "Eh," and even a little "bleh," but once I'd had a handful more, I found myself nibbling steadily down the bag. A few hours later, I was addicted to them, and they were Delicious. I went and checked out the websites, and sat staring at them for hours. I made an icon for my instant messenger chat out of one of the characters.

My theory, later, ran that there was some kind of addictive and slightly psychotropic substance in the jelly beans, and subliminal/hypnotic influences in the website. (It was preeeeeetty strange, people.) But I still think back on them with little delighted bounces and worries that they've done something unwholesome (and permanent) to my brain, and I watch for them eagerly at after-holiday-clearance sales.

ZOOEY IS THAT JELLY BEAN.

...That is all.

Year in Review meme.

Just kind of interesting! Take the first sentence from the first post of each month of 2007. That's your year in review.

(I've added the subject line, too, because generally that was more interesting. -_-)

Jan: Brief cross-post: I am alive.
Feb: Mine eyes have felt the glory of the Chloropicrin burn. . . I was going to try to make a whooooole parody off of that, but I have not the power, today.
Mar: For my love, this morning, while he's away. You in Bloom
Apr: Hear the glorious tones of the air filter. . . We're back from Arizona!
May: Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Let it hereby be known that I am a hypochondriac.
Jun: (No posts in this journal in June.)
Jul: I am wearing guitar-pick earrings. Hi, folks, just a brief update.
Aug: I'm having a very odd moment: I've just done four hours, unbroken, of fairly mind-melty work (researching contact info and sending out 8 million personalized emails), and I haven't really come down from it.
Sep: False October We had an Autumn day, yesterday.
Oct: Lee, my birthday, NESsT, Love For my birthday, Lee (my lovely boss) brought me back Goodies.
Nov: Solidarity! Take a minute and read this, if you would, for the sake of unemployed and hungry writers: a good write-up about what's actually at stake for the writers in the guild strike.
Dec: Update. I figured I should take time out of letting America's "Tin Man" and Elton John's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" (theme? Yes.) eat my brains to give y'all a brief update.

The other journal differed only in this way:

Dec: I don't care if they DID take your brain out, I would still eat you. Did anybody else out there watch SciFi's Tin Man?

Update.

I figured I should take time out of letting America's "Tin Man" and Elton John's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" (theme? Yes.) eat my brains to give y'all a brief update.

First: I love you.

Second: I love work.

Third: I love kitschy Christmas music.

Re: 3: The choir/symphony/ballet/random community members/etc are all getting together and putting on a Holiday Pops concert (which has been sold out for two weeks, with some tickets going for $70+! EEK!) and that means I've been getting my Holiday Season On pretty hard, preparing music. "We Need A Little Christmas" makes me cry. FYI. ("For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder, grown a little sadder, grown a little older and I need a little angel, sitting on my shoulder. . .") Parts of "Little Drummer Boy" do, too, but I think that's mostly because my dad used to listen to it with my brother every night, when he was little, and this was my dad's favorite time of year.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" makes me cry, too, since we're on the topic ("Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow; until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow..."). But we're not doing that one--I just can't keep it out of my head. It really looks like some of the family are not going to be coming for Christmas, and not for any pleasant, easy-to-deal-with reasons. And, my dears, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm having a really, really hard time with it. I've been trying to keep a handle on it, on account of everyone else involved is having a really hard time of it, too, and I've got it relatively easy. But, still. I miss and love them all a lot, and it's tough. I am literally unable to do anything about it.

So, I'm trying to keep the old spirits up. Mostly, it's working. We've got the place full of warm light and draped in Mardi Gras beads, I'm throwing myself into the kitschy Christmas music, we're looking forward to having our Christina and Guerin move in across the street. I'm making green gifts, I'm writing, I'm having a good time of it.

I made Chris a recycled train, out of soda and cat food cans, and the tins that tea lights burn in. Oh, and a little used tin foil. It's.. . really, really cute, actually. I'll try to get a picture up, one of these days.

I hope y'all are well, and surviving your semesters/holidays/work crunches/etc. ::HUGS::

LOVE

Gurglegleh.

Hi, guys,

I know I've got a lot of email I should respond to, but I've been really sick for pushing a week now, and though I felt a ton better yesterday, I'm having a bad relapse now--just in time for us to fly out to Chicago, tonight. To go to a conference. Where it's snowing. In a city I want to see and have never been into, before. i.e., where I am probably going to go ahead and get sicker rather than better.

I feel crap.

I will email/catch up/all that once we're back and have settled in and all. I just can't muster enough brain power, right now.

LOVE

Solidarity!

Take a minute and read this, if you would, for the sake of unemployed and hungry writers: a good write-up about what's actually at stake for the writers in the guild strike.

What I found most shocking in this was that the number the AMPTP has been putting around (trying to make this group out to be fat-cat greedy types) about writer's average yearly income being $200,000 dollars? is figured only from whoever in the guild happened to be employed at the time, ignoring the vast majority of the writers who are most of the time NOT able to find paid work, and are barely squeaking by on what residuals they've got, but including the few outlying multi-millionaires. Imagine how different that number would look if everyone in the guild was counted for the averaging of income of guild members--that is, if there was a useful, accurate number here at all. That number would be tempered by the vast field of $0 income-at-any-given-times, and it would plummet.

This is intellectual property, people. This is about getting to see at least a little more return from their creative work, when studios and producers are exploiting them to the fullest and getting paid for what the writers have done over and over. If you wrote something, and weren't even allowed to keep a copyright, and someone else was making buckets of money off of it while you were at it, wouldn't you want to see more than a half a percent of that?

CONCERT!

We went to the Bridge School Benefit concert in Mountainview (near San Jose) with some friends, this weekend, and it was a blast.

Some notes: Neil Young (who puts the concert together every year) is probably a little crazy, so is Regina Spektor, Tegan and Sara think you shouldn't wear shorts and sandals while rocking out, My Morning Jacket were an interesting choice of last-minute replacement for Eddie Vedder and Flea, John Mayer does a great "Freefalling" cover, Tom Waits + Kronos Quartet = Big Awesome, Jerry Lee Lewis is NOT dead, and the Metallica fans present mostly seemed to have a problem with their boys going acoustic-cover-band.

I enjoyed everyone a hell of a lot, myself, and as most of them were new or nearly new to me, I've got plenty of new people to look up! It was $50 for a spot on the grass a really long way away, as the temperature dropped down into the 40's, but we got there at 5 pm and didn't leave until after midnight, and it goes to the school for disabled children and music ed and such, so I think that's well worth it. We heard 61 songs--everyone did 6 or 7 or 8 each. I took notes enough to be able to figure out what all but two songs were, afterwards, but I only knew 12 of them, to begin with. I think I officially recommend everyone I heard, though. Go to it.

Here's the playlist, as best as I could figure it (I *'d the ones I was particularly hot on, in case you're interested):

NEIL YOUNG
"Sugar Mountain"*
"Beautiful Bluebird" (as a duet with his wife, Peggy)

REGINA SPEKTOR
"That Ain't No Cover"
"On the Radio"*
"The Flowers"*
"Ghost of Corporate Future"
"One More Time With Feeling"
"Fidelity"
"Samson"*

TEGAN AND SARA
"Call it Off"
"The Con"
"Walking With a Ghost"
"Where Does the Good Go?"
"Like O, Like H"*
"Nineteen"*
"Back in Your Head"
"Living Room"*
"I've Got You"

MY MORNING JACKET
"The Way That He Sings"
"What a Wonderful Man"
"Gideon"
"Golden"*
"Bermuda Highway"*
((Can't figure out what song this was! :( Thought it had the phrase "feel so wonderful" in it, but no luck in finding it))
"Anytime"

JOHN MAYER
((Missed one due to craziness in finding bathrooms))
"Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"
"Waiting on the World to Change"*
"Gravity"
"Deeper and Deeper"((I *THINK.* This is highly questionable.))
"Free Falling" (Tom Petty cover)*

TOM WAITS and the KRONOS QUARTET
"Way Down in the Hole"*
"Cold Cold Ground"
"Little Drop of Poison"*
"The Part You Throw Away"
"God's Away on Business"
"Day After Tomorrow"*
"What Keeps Mankind Alive"
"Diamond in Your Mind"

NEIL YOUNG
"The Way"
"Winterlong"
"Spirit Road"
"Oh, Lonesome Me"
"I'm the Believer"
"No Hidden Path"*

JERRY LEE LEWIS
"Roll Over, Beethoven"*
"You Win Again" (Hank Williams cover)
"Hadacol Boogie"*
"Midnight Blues"*
"Your Cheatin' Heart"
"Before the Night is Over"*
"Great Balls of Fire"*
"Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On"

METALLICA
"I Just Want to Celebrate" (Rare Earth cover)
"Please Don't Judas Me" (Nazareth cover)*
"I'm Only Happy When it Rains" (Garbage cover)*
"My Brothers in Arms" (Dire Straits cover)*
"Disposable Heroes"
"All Within My Hands"
"Turn the Page" (Bob Seger cover)
"Nothing Else Matters"

Okay, I don't want to inundate you with comments, but just a couple more things:

Barring a couple of electric basses, everyone played acoustically, and almost everyone played a social commentary/anti-war kind of song, at some point. If you don't know Tom Waits' "Day After Tomorrow," you should--I cried and cried, because that's how I am at concerts. (I heard it first when Tom was on the Daily Show, but we snagged up the album soon after--it's absolutely beautiful. It would have been more beautiful if the assholes behind us would have stopped bitching about his voice, but hélas!) Metallica were very warm and generous (hometown heroes, and all), Young spent a ton of time basically jamming and obviously having a really good time. Jerry Lee-fucking-Lewis rocked really hard, and, say what you will about serious song-writing, his was the only set where people got up and danced. He was snarky, and actually got his sexy-bastard on (the lyrics of "Before the Night is Over" are awfully raunch for a 70-ish guy), and I loved it. He and Neil Young now join the Eagles, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Richie Havens as the people I'm fucking lucky to have gotten to see, because--frankly--they could stop touring any day, now.

It was just... it was wonderful. Good company, great music, good long walks between the hotel and the concert site, good food the whole weekend and drinks. If you're ever out this way, I'd definitely suggest this, there are new people every year, it's a good cause, it's a ton of music.

Dumbledore/Grindelwald = Canon.

No shit, check it out. Here's the blurb from IMDB:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix author J.K. Rowling has shocked fans of the boy-wizard series by stating that character Albus Dumbledore as gay. The writer revealed the truth of the Hogwarts school headmaster's sexuality at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday as part of her American book tour. When asked by an audience member if Dumbledore had found "true love," she replied, "Dumbledore is gay," adding he was in love with his rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he once beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. She says, "Falling in love can blind us to an extent. (Dumbledore was) horribly, terribly let down."

For a longer story, here is the article from the Guardian. I just love her more and more all the time.

Edit: Here's another good article, from AP.

Risk factors.

I was reading a little article on judging your risk of/genetic predisposition towards breast cancer, involving how many blood relatives have had it, or have had "related" cancers, etc.

What I want to know is, can there be a genetic predisposition towards cancer? That is, not just one particular form, but towards cancer in general? And, even if not, outside of breast and ovarian cancers being related, are other forms of cancer that are related to one another? Which?

My father's sister died at 53 of pancreatic cancer. Their father died of (admittedly environmentally related) leukemia, and their mother of brain cancer. Her brother died a handful of years ago--I think that was cancer, too, but I'm not certain of it, or of which kind, if so--and their sister had tumors (non-malignant) in her breasts. So did my mother's mother. And another blood relative (either mother's father or mother's mother's father, can't remember which) died of cancer, too, on that side. Kidneys, I think, but maybe it was liver.

My father, like his sister, died when he was 53 (of everything, apparently), but sometimes, in full blown paranoid mode, I wonder if he didn't have cancer, too, and just didn't tell us. He was very proud, he didn't talk about things that were wrong. He saw plenty of doctors for all his various problems, got sicker and more beat up as time went on, and would come home sometimes with his head shaved completely bald, and have his hair grow back softer and whiter than it had been, before. Maybe he just decided to do that? And maybe it just coincidentally coincided with his follicles giving out in their melanin-producing capacity? But shaving it off would certainly cover up hair falling out from therapy, too.

But even not relying on that, there's still a pretty heavy dose coming in from his side. And that's not getting anywhere near the heart attacks and strokes, depression, alcoholism, and other potentially genetically pre-disposing trouble on either side. (In case I haven't mentioned, I'm not having children. The fact that they'd be doomed is only a small part of that, but it bears mention.)

So. What I wonder is, do all of these disparate cases of different kinds of cancer amount to a general predisposition for it? Can there be that?

Just something I think about. Y'know. Sometimes.

Boy-oh-boy.

So, hey, have you guys heard of Google Alert? If not, it's a way that you can keep track of who is writing about you/your company/whatever on the web, and what's being said. So, if you're signed up for it and someone writes an article about your company, Google Alert will send you an update, with the link and the article in it.

Can you see where this is going, yet?

If you guessed "Your work has Google Alert, of course, and found your journal!" you win the cupie doll. Now, try for two: Can you guess which of my two nearly identical journals came up on the alert? Here's a hint: one had the picture of me I used for my work's homepage and a cute little purple pig, and the other has an icon of three, clinging hockey boys labeled "Sordid Love Triangle." One is always pretty Safe For Work, and the other is, well, not.

Ah, well. The narrative imperative has to be obeyed, right? And there is a very bright side. (1) Lee gave my description of the company a ringing endorsement, and was very pleased (and thought the whole situation was really funny--I agreed, once the red face died down). (2) After going back through my last twenty entries of The Other Journal, I find there is actually no smut posted on that main page, right now. Oh, links, sure, and a little HP fangirling, but right now it's actually SFW. (3) He said he didn't go through the rest of the journal, anyway (though I have no idea about the other two people the link went to).

So, I linked this one from that one again, and cleared out links to that one from this one. So if anyone followed it over and is checking in, here, hello!

This one's really the same as the other one, only without the potential for embarrassment. And you're welcome to either, I suppose, but if you'd rather not run across smut (rare though it is), I'd recommend sticking with this one.

Lee, my birthday, NESsT, Love

For my birthday, Lee (my lovely boss) brought me back Goodies. I frequently get a little bit of swag (who knew the UBS was big on giving out mints?), but this was especially cool.

So this is actually a good opportunity to describe a little of what NESsT does.

Lee gave me a bottle of wine, in a cool woven bag, with a cool little notebook inside. The bag and notebook were made by one of the non-profit NGOs in Budapest that NESsT is working with.

This group employs the mentally challenged, letting them be productive and creative, and bring in an income, which would otherwise be a very, very remote prospect. They weave everything by hand, themselves, on small looms--tapestries, rugs, bags, scarves. They also hand-make the paper for the covers of the little notebooks, which are sewn together. The art on the covers is theirs. It's beautiful, it's colorful, it's doing a lot of good in their community.

Now, NESsT comes in this way: NESsT does a lot of fundraising, then, rather than just dispersing funds out for one-time gifts, the money goes into infrastructure for these community groups. NESsT does what is basically business training for these groups (business professionals donate time to help in this), and gives the groups technical assistance to keep up and running, and helps them find venues for the products they're making. NESsT helps them with the marketing, and in learning how to do all those sorts of things on their own. And when it's all together, these non-profit non-government community groups have solid infrastructure and a steady source of income that they can use to employ locals and give back to their communities in whatever way their communities need. They get to be self-sufficient (NESsT stands for Non-Profit Enterprise and Self-Sustainability Team). And all that without having to compromise themselves in whatever way private corporations or donors would require before giving them any funding, and without having the unsteadiness of highly variable incomes, or anything else most small charities have to suffer through.

It is really, intensely cool. NESsT takes (in my opinion) the best stuff from the business world and the best stuff from the philanthropy world, and helps people make really wonderful things happen.

It's the panacea, for me, too. I'm not doing much that's big or grand, I'm not working full-time or doing heavy lifting and fund-raising or donating or marketing, but I help with every little thing to keep NESsT running smoothly that I can. I'm putting numbers in spreadsheets and keeping track of business cards and doing research and mailing letters and loading software, but it means that I'm helping (if in just a remote, small little way) to keep small communities in South America and Eastern Europe from starving.

Isn't that amazing?

Maybe I'm PMSing, but I'm about to cry.

I LOVE my job.


P.S. In case you were wondering: the wine is Joe Blow Red.

Help!

Hey, folks, I've got a link for you to follow.

Contact Governor Schwarzenegger.

I know most of you aren't residents, but As Goes California, So Goes the Nation, right?

...Please?

See, if you go to that link, and click "Have a comment," put in your name and email, and scroll down the "choose your subject" menu to "Gender-neutral marriage/AB 00043" it'll take you right to a handy page where you can send our gov an email. If on that page you click "Pro," and leave him a nice little note asking him to sign--not veto--our run for redefining marriage without gender pronouns (i.e. legalizing same-sex marriage), it would be a very awesome thing of you.

The text of the bill can be found here, and it's very, very good. It makes the argument well.

Please. As wonderful human beings, would you do this?

LOVE!


P.S. I would consider it a wonderful birthday present, if you did.

Jury Duty? Really?

I have to start checking to see if I have to go in for jury duty. I'm scheduled to be on call this coming week.

I don't want to do it.

Now, it's not that I begrudge a civic duty. If they wanted me to, I'd direct traffic or file papers or do something like that. And it's only partly that my partner's Ex-Wife works at the courthouse. But, I mean, really. . . you want me to help decide someone's fate? I don't want to. I'd gladly sit in the court all day for a week, it's just the responsibility of it that I don't want.

Part of it is that I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend that anyone be sentenced to waste in our prison system, whether or not they're guilty of whatever crime, so I'm not going to be able to take the weigh-only-the-facts oath. I am, in fact, a budding prison abolitionist.

Do you think that if I tell them that they'll let me go? Will I have a chance to tell them that?

I'm hoping they'll just dismiss me without cause. I'm 24*, I'm very visibly a total hippie, I've got a nice fat summa cum laude degree, and I'm a secretary for a Fucking Non-Profit™. I'm signed up for newsletters from Unmarried.org, the Human Rights Campaign, the Organic Consumers Association, the Arbor Day Foundation, and the National Home Gardening Club. I've gone to protests, signed petitions, and go to union meetings for fun. This afternoon it's going to be writing-my-state-representatives-time, to try to encourage them in this whole moratorium-on-the-death-sentence thing.

One side or the other is going to consider me a liability, you know?

Here's hoping.

LOVE

EDIT: Called in, and I am off the hook! But you all knew that.


*In five days. Happy birthday to me. . .

False October

We had an Autumn day, yesterday.

There's something I'd like to point out, about the Summer we've been having here in lovely, moderate, seasonless California. Namely, the Central Valley thereof. Namely, Turlock. That is this: Turock has had 25 days at or above 100˚F (the usual was 10-14 days of 100˚F+, until Madness set in). There was one week, late June, where the temperature was in the low nineties, but since May, that's it. It's been upper nineties and above. We have broken 4 records, this summer, and that's only the ones I'm sure of and checked, not the ones I suspected. We've had half the normal amount of rainfall, and only a quarter of the regular snowpack. So we're also headed for a drought, to complement all of our wildfires.

And the wildfires bring us here, to Autumn.

After a week and a half of no day where it was under 78˚ by midnight, or after 10 am, and where the high temperatures ranged from 101-106, it has all of a sudden not broken 90 for two days. Yesterday morning it was fucking cold, for August.

The sun was bright, the sky was hazy, it was 62˚F, the sky was hazy and the air was crisp. And smoky.

Because the valley is On Fire.

But at least I could pretend it was because it really was Autumn, and people were building fires in their fireplaces, and the joys of October were just around the corner. It was a very good day, apart from the ash in the lungs.

Wedded bliss! And accosting the flower arrangments.

This was supposed to be the summer for weddings, but everything exploded. One wedding was postponed 'til I'm not sure when, and the site for the other is on fire, so it got moved.

I went to the latter one this evening. It was absolutely beautiful--Liz and Doug, may all the best come to you!

I danced with anyone who stayed in the same place long enough, including two disabled children, my man, the bride, and biology students. I also got completely drunk on wine and champagne and the absence of water.

...Well, not completely. I'm typing, aren't I? (I just got home, you know.)

However, on the way home, I ate half of the rose I pilfered from the arrangements.

...So I'm probably fairly drunk.

That is all.



P.S. This was apparently my fiftieth post for this blog. Such an honor.

I'm having a very odd moment:

I've just done four hours, unbroken, of fairly mind-melty work (researching contact info and sending out 8 million personalized emails), and I haven't really come down from it. That makes 10 hours, this week, which is more than usual, for me. I feel pretty productive; it's one of the big items checked off my list, and it helps with the guilt that's come of slacking off while Lee is on vacation.

It is also my very good friend Michelle's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!), which is a joyous occasion.

And in something like 3 or 4 hours, my Raechel and her beau will be here, in my house, which is equally joyous. I haven't seen her in months, and I miss her. I've gotten the place cleaned up and settled with appropriate sleeping places for guests, towels, etc, found suitable food, all of that.

I've been reading and writing a lot. I've been making goodies for a bridal shower gift for yet another loved friend. It's 103˚F outside, but it's nice in here, the cat is quietly curled up next to me, Chris is playing guitar upstairs. I'm hungry, but things are otherwise nice, and they're calm, and I'm in one of those states where my mind won't settle down to match, but rather is humming white noise at me and I can't actually think about anything or focus on anything or reflect or enjoy or anything.

My father has been dead ten years to the day. Ten years and about thirteen hours.

I feel odd.

So, Day Two.

As some of you may know, I am home alone this weekend, because Chris is at a conference-thing in Reno. Well, Thursday morning to Saturday night, not exactly the weekend. But this means that I am moping about without my Love. I should be potting plants and getting air and sunshine, but I'm potting around online, instead.

This also means:
(a) I cannot get to the Midnight Ball at Borders (oh, you know I would have been there).
(b) Consequently, I have to wait to get my HP 7.0 until Saturday morning when I can catch the bus or bike over there, meaning like 20 more hours of waiting.
(c) Furthermore, I'm going to have to read like hell to finish it before Chris gets home, because I'm not going to be able to put it down and I'm not going to want to put him down when I haven't seen him in three days, and this presents a conflict.
(d) I'm finally, finally reading a little Online Fiction again (if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge)
(e) I've watched more bad TV in a night than I usually do in a month.
(f) I'm not behaving like a rational human being in general. Forgetting to eat/sleep/wash/etc, keeping odd hours, and so on.
(g) And last but certainly not least, it means that (in the immortal words of M.C.A.), it's time to get nice. In my time-honored tradition of dealing relatively unhappily, unintelligently, and harmlessly with our brief separations, I am hoping to be utterly potted within the next few hours.

Now, before I check out to hide from potential unintentional spoilers online, some brief announcements:

- Food is good for you.
- Mint, in baking, can hide a variety of sins.
- My laptop's hinges are about to break. I can FEEL IT. So stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of "My Six-Year Old Overused Laptop."
- My Chris gets killed off in the last HP book.
- During his trip, however, he has not yet shot a man, just to watch him die. (Corollary: When he hears that lonesome whistle, he does not hang his head and cry.)
- One of the main offices of the group I work for is in Santiago, Chile--and I am reading a story by someone in Santiago Chile. Coincidence??!?! (Experts agree: yes.)
- I am currently, inexplicably wishing I had non-metallic, very saturated, bubble-gum pink nailpolish. Experts are baffled.

And this just in: the bed's too big without you.

And they're still picking up the bodies.

I have officially completed my first pay period, for work. And you know what that means: I'm about to become a taxpayer.

It's very exciting.

I am wearing guitar-pick earrings.

Hi, folks, just a brief update. Mostly because I haven't given y'all any update.

So: I am alive and well and flourishing!

Work is fantastic. I made it through my first full week, and got two months worth of finances in order and sent off in just a few days. Chris and I have been writing music like mad, and it's good. The cat is eating again, finally, and taking antibiotics at a lower rate (and still doing okay--knock on wood). I am off antibiotics again (I was on them again), and this time, the root canal* seems to actually have stopped the problem. My tomatoes and basil are finally booming, and we've gotten an FT of both. This is because it has been hot. In fact, it has been fucking hot (104˚F, today, for instance--40˚C), but we were able to borrow a lot of movies from the library to keep us busy, keep us inside in the cool, and sate my newfound Peter O'Toole obsession. We've seen, very recently: Lawrence of Arabia, The Great Escape, Lion in Winter, Some Like it Hot, Bright Young Things, How to Steal a Million, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sweet Charity, Annie Hall, 1408, and Wilde, as well as re-watched Blood and Donuts, Peter's Friends, and a fair bit of Eddie Izzard standup, recorded Lord Jim and a lot more Eddie Izzard standup to watch soon, and still have Triplets of Belleville, Time Bandits and Awakenings awaiting. We read Orlando, and are working through How I Became a Nun (and I am reading Mansfield Park and Guards! Guards!). We had a cheesey indoor 4th of July feast, today, and tomorrow is our THREE YEAR anniversary of moving in together (the really important one, we feel). We've had lots of good sex and good food, which I seem to be digesting,** and I have been happily and thoroughly exploring the Cocktail book my mother gave me (along with the 501-Must-See-Movies book, which has been aiding in other pursuits mentioned above). We're*** getting Petr Sykora, and getting to keep Christensen and Whitney, though we wanted Hannan, as well. I feel like I'm actually getting better at playing the piano, again, on account of having the freedom to actually sit down and play one. T-minus-9 days to Order of the Phoenix, and T-minus-17 days to Deathly Hollows.

I think that is probably enough to digest all at once. I love and miss you all, and I will sit down and catch up on all of your journals soon. Very soon. I hope. I am, unusually, currently more available by email than by journal-commenting, so try it out if you wanna'. I'll try not to be too much of a flake. I hope you are all WELL.

LOVE.


*This is the third root canal. My teeth were the Communism-Domino-Theory in action, but they've now been cut the fuck off at the pass. No more horrendous aaaooowh in the teeth, TYVM.
**Not always the case. If it's a digestive fluke with an acronym, I've probably got it.
***This contraction stands for "The Penguins, of whom we are fans, are"