Vapor Trails

So I haven’t talked about this much (well not really at all) but this weekend marks a whole year since my beloved Jim died. (??!!) Today at least, I find myself unable to think about him in the context of sadness and loss. However, it *has* been on my mind and I felt compelled to do something.

Generally, I don’t believe in fate or that things happen for a reason. I think that shit happens: sometimes good shit, sometimes bad shit. What really matters is not how the dice land but what we do with the dice that land at our feet. Jim and I made choices that brought us into each others lives. Bad shit happened and he died. So what do I do?

This morning I donned my Donate Life button and I decided to dub Friday Update Your Damn Donor Organ Donor Information Day (Yes, this was stolen from yesthattom and I hope he doesn’t mind.)

Take the time Friday, March 7, to make sure that you are listed as an organ donor on your driver’s license or county ID. If you’ve already done that, make sure that those closest to you (especially the person who will be making health decisions for you) know that you are an organ donor. Talk to the people you love about being organ donors and make sure they’ve noted it on their records as well. It’s not fun thinking about what happens if our tomorrows run out before we expect them to, but sometimes it happens. (Even, sadly, for children.)

Do it for Jim; do it for the people he left behind, the ones who loved him, do it for his son; do it for the people whose lives he touched after he died with his selfless gift.

Do it because even the baddest of bad shit can bring a little good into what can be a pretty random world.

Thanks.

Desiderata (Excerpts)
by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence....

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans....

[F]or the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

As much of an snarling, cynical wretch as I might seem to be, I have carried this poem with me in one form or another everywhere I have lived since I was 12 or 13. For all of the horrible, incomprehensible things that make us shake our fists at the sky and say, "Why, damn you, why?" it is still a beautiful world and a glorious life and we only get one ride on the carousel and the brass ring sometimes wears a disguise.

But inside I'm giggling like a schoolgirl

I'm 80% LiveJournal!



Elite status.
You just can't help being so good.

The LiveJournal Quiz

Take Other Caffeine Nebula Quizzes

Wry chuckle.

You Are A Vampire

You have a real thirst for bliss, and you consider yourself a true hedonist. And you're not afraid to walk alone in life, if it means getting what you truly crave. You truly enjoy entrancing people. Not to mention the ensuing pleasures of the flesh. Your tastes have been called decadent and bizarre. You usually give in to your temptations, no matter how primal Your greatest power: Your flawless ability to seduce and charm Your greatest weakness: Human flesh You play well with: Werewolves

The original Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway is on Turner Movie Classics at 6:15. I know what I'll be watching. This is one of the few movies (if not the only one) where I enjoy the remake just about as much as the original.

I think the the leads in both films made these roles their own but I've got to give the slight edge to McQueen. Who knew that chess could be so very stimulating and romantic?

I think I'll go make myself something civilized to have along with the movie.

So I’m off today and to be honest (because when am I even not?) I’m not too thrilled about it. For those who don’t have off from work, today is the holiday celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Around this time of year McDonalds, Walmart and many of the other bastions of the cult of commercialism run ads paying tribute to Dr King’s legacy and how color blind our society has become but how much farther it has to go. As soon as you feel all warm and fuzzy they slip in a reminder that this message about peace, love and understanding is brought to you by your favorite corporate entity.

Sorry, I digress.

People might make the assumption that a black female, born a few months before President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, would be pleased to see a holiday honoring the most famous Civil Rights Advocate in American history. No, not so much.

I remember when Martin Luther King Day became a Federal holiday. The first year everyone was full of the zeal to take the day to go to religious or other special services, to do volunteer work, to make their corner of their community better for everyone. If you listened quietly you could hear the sound of shoulders dislocating as people patted themselves on the back for being so good.

This year, as people were leaving for the weekend, all I heard was chatter about what movies they were going to see, where they were going to shop and how they were going to enjoy sleeping late. I’m not saying that *no one* was going to do something special commemorating Dr King, just that it wasn’t the BIG DEAL that it was in the first years after the day was instituted. I imagine that when Lincoln or Washington’s birthdays were freshly minted holidays the people who advocated for them never imagined that they would mean little more than sales on bedding and in fact would eventually be merged into that amorphous entity “President’s Day”.

We’ll see events on TV and I’m sure that a good number of people on me FList who read this will have done something meaningful. If you did, you were atypical.

So how would I suggest Dr King be commemorated?

Well first, I don’t know if I want to commemorate Dr King. I think that in this age of poring over every jot and tittle of the personal life of famous people, to raise an individual to the status of icon (and when one’s birthday becomes a Federal holiday, this is what you are doing) invites potential detractors to look for reasons the person should *not* be so commemorated. The focus is shifted from the message to the personal peccadilloes of the messenger. I think that is high asshattery but that’s what happens.

Honestly, I don’t care so much about Martin Luther King, Jr the person. He was a man and as a man was fallible. While I don’t think that his fallibility detracts from the bigger message he carried; there are people who will (and do) discount the message because of the flaws in the man.

If we *must* have a day off, I’d rather see a day devoted to the ideals that shaped America. A day to honor not only Dr King but Medger Evers, Cesar Chavez, Lucy Stone, Wilma Mankiller, Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman (how many college students even know who these people are?) and others, some whose names are forever lost to history, who have given their time, commitment and in some cases, lives, for a better, more just American society. A day to remember that those ideals must be reached for every day and the steps towards realizing them can be lost much more easily than they were gained.

I want a day where we strive for an America where we no longer have to mark the first African-American this or the first female that.

Instead of a day off, I would like to see this be a day where the business of the country is interrupted for an hour or two in the middle of the day. I want an action that will say: “This day is different from another day off.” We can use that time to register to vote. If we are already registered to vote, we use it to register others or to write a letter to an elected official advocating for a position that we feel strongly about. If we don’t have a position that we feel strongly about, take that time and to inform ourselves about the issues

So what did I do today? I did nothing of any great consequence to me. But I also did some thinking. Thought about how unremarkable it is that both children in my family graduated from college. How unremarkable it is that most of our work lives have been spent in white collar work. I thought about my grandmothers who scrubbed floors to feed their children during the depression and about my uncles who wore the uniform of a segregated military. I thought about my nephew who already talks about, “When I go to college Mommy...” I thought about the teacher who felt the need to point out that I was the only minority (let alone black) in the accelerated class when I was in junior high school and how I cried because no one had ever told me the combination of my intelligence and my race was anything remarkable.

I thought about the sound bites from the I Have A Dream speech and how we Americans move towards that ideal; sometimes held aloft by the winds of history and sometimes on our knees with shame but move we do: by inches, by feet, by miles.

Happy MLK Day everybody!

I got the best present in the world: the only person who understands *why* I'm as crazy as I am. Happy Birthday to my baby sister. Thank you for not having a LiveJournal, I don't think you want to be perplexed by me any more than you already are.

So instead I will present this little meme courtesy of allessindra and then I will try to sleep (again.)n

( Who comments the most on this journal? )

So a question that I'm sure one of you savvy people on my LJ can answer.....

What the heck is gender queer and how is it different from what I used to refer to as androgyny?

For greeneyed_devil who posted this a few months ago; the bride in question was so proud of herself she sent a bunch of pictures into CNN.com so they could cover her cake as news.

See for yourself: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/01/07/cake.irpt/index.html

No Freakin' Comment.

She was trolling for Dinner Companions.

Went to Sahara in New Brunswick with onecrazymother (pre-cold), catwithbell and allessindra.  A great time was had by all with plenty of good food and good chat. A lot of chat. Like the restaurant turned over 3 times chat (ok, not exactly but close.)  I also have a new crush: A lusciously garlicky chopped cauliflower that I'm sure makes the essence of the stinking rose ooze from my every pore.

It was fabulous and I'll eat it again. Soon.

Considering that I felt like socially backwards for making that post, but it ended up being one of the best Friday nights I've spent in a while. Certainly better than sitting at home with Middle Eastern take-out and thinking, "gee, I wish I were out with people."  DUH. Sometimes it takes me the longest time to learn the simplest lessons.

4min33sec  , fragiletruth  and overand  didn’t make it Friday night because they were cleaning and shopping for a party. There was a party because 4min33sec  , fragiletruth  GOT MARRIED!!!

The party was great, the bride looked lovely and had a bouquet that was sweet. it’s always fun when families and friends collide. There was nothing worth mentioning in the way of drama and everyone seemed to have a great time helping the newlyweds celebrate. (For the record, I am quite competent at opening up bottle of champaign. Heh)

If love is never having to say your sorry, than poly love is having your sweeties stand up for you at your wedding and help out at the party.

Because my mind has been doing an impression of swiss cheese lately, I wrote down what I wanted to say during the toast and I reproduce it here:

The signing of a document and the recitation of words is simply the skin of the living thing that is your love for one another. We who are gathered here with you today are here not only to celebrate your marriage but also in affirmation that we support you in your decision to entwine your lives. Thank you for inviting us to be a part.

We will be with you in joy, support you in the struggle and sorrow that punctuate every lifetime and sing your praises on occasions such as this.

Nietzsche said, “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” May your time together be long and filled to overflowing with friendship between the two of you and among the friends and family who love you.

Mazel Tov to All of You!

People will look at you funny if you have Rammstein's Du Hast coming out of your computer speakers. And no, it is not Nazi music.....at least I don't think so.

I found these amusing but understanding that some people might find joking about about mental illness in bad taste, I'm putting it under a cut.
( Mental Humor Jokes under the cut )

In other news, if you haven't already, I would suggest that anyone who shares my twisted, irreverent sense of humor check out sinister_cat. It's a peppery one panel strip that features a vaguely Kilban style cat who has an air of both superiority and contempt. And Sinister Cat is cruel, so deliciously cruel.

You've go to check this out.

From Wired.com; here be the link if thou wishes to read the article with links:http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/sleep_deprivation

---

Snorting a Brain Chemical Could Replace Sleep
In what sounds like a dream for millions of tired coffee drinkers, Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate sleepiness.

A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The discovery's first application will probably be in treatment of the severe sleep disorder narcolepsy. ( The rest of the article is under here )

I wonder what the catch is with this drug? I bet it makes you grow an extra nose or something like that.

Well I guess the winter holidays had their year end party the other night. Christmas must have gotten blotto and decided to stagger home. He obviously got sick on the way because he seems to have thrown up on several local yards.

That's the only explanation I can come up with for the *riot* of giant tchotchkes crammed on to peoples' lawns. Is it necessary to have Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, The 3 Wise men assorted animals, Santa, Rudolph and all the other reindeer, Charlie Brown, assorted angels, shepherds, carolers, Tiny Tim and Scrooge numerous other season icons and Sponge Bob Square Pants (WTF??!!) on your front lawn to celebrate the season? I think Harry Hanukkah, Susie Solstice and Kizzy Kwanza were crammed in there for good measure. It's enough to make the aforementioned Baby Jesus cry.

The power sucked up by the multi colored blinking lights is the reason California runs short in July.

People, aside from providing me with LULZ is there any valid reason for this?

I am finally infected by the Christmas Spirit.

I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human Wizard (6th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-10

Dexterity-11

Constitution-12

Intelligence-12

Wisdom-16

Charisma-12


Alignment:
Lawful Neutral A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus</a></b> (e-mail)

Have I pimped this awesome webcomic? If you've never checked it out I hope you do.

Lovingly gakked from sagefemme11; feel free to perpetuate this little piece of teh Interweb love.

Wrapping paper or gift bags? I mix it up. I love gift wrap but don’t have the manual dexterity to make it super crisp so over the years I have defaulted to non-traditional wrapping for presents. Bags bore me but I do use them if I can’t think of anything better or the gift is very oddly shaped.

Real or artificial tree? Real. I love the smell so much I have a big candle that smells like a Christmas tree that I burn all year long. It’s the thing I miss the most about not having a home? No tree

When do you put up the tree? Usually December 23 or 24.

When do you take the tree down? January 7, the day after Little Christmas

Do you like eggnog? I don’t like eggs, I don’t like dairy yet I like egg nog (in limited doses and liberally spiked with bourbon or rum)

Do you like Fruitcake? ACK! That would be no.

Favorite gift received as a child? I didn’t celebrate Christmas as a child. I didn’t get my first Christmas present until I was 16

Favorite gift received as an adult? For sheer material value, I would say a the new car I got for a 1st anniversary/Christmas present. For sheer sentimental value it would have to either be the set of dishes my sister bought me the first Christmas she and I spent together or the dresser Jim gave me last year.

Do you have a nativity scene? Yes I do.

Hardest person to buy for? The kids, I have *no* idea what’s age appropriate

Easiest person to buy for? The kids. My sister tells me what they need/want

Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A flimsy, pink, plastic bathroom cleaning set (toilet brush, bucket, cheap plastic waste basket) complete with the tag still on the bottom of the wastebasket. UGH. I got the short stick of the Office Secret Santa that year.

Mail or email Christmas cards? Christmas Cards

Favorite Christmas Movie? Meet Me in St Louis or Scrooged

When do you start shopping for Christmas? I make most of my presents but I try to be done with most of my shopping by early December

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Of course, but never to or from people I really like.

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Prime Rib or some other form of roasted meat

Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear lights, I like to leave the color to the ornaments

Favorite Christmas song? Nancy LaMott does an awesome medley of Bring the Torch Jeannette, Isabella and I Saw Three Ships. To sing? O Holy Night or Porpora’s Magnificat

"All Christmas/All the Time" station on the radio in the car? Sometimes

All time favorite Christmas album? I have this CD called God Comes Tomorrow that is one of the few that has music specifically for Advent as well as Christmas

Favorite Christmas TV Special? A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Wish for Wings That Work: They both make me weepy

Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel

If you could spend Christmas, even just once, anywhere in the world, where? In a well stocked, cozy bungalow with a fireplace, Someplace very snowy, with someone special who will probably be on the computer while I read.

Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yes ( Names under cut )

Tree topper? A Christmas bear

Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Open one present Christmas Eve and the rest Christmas Day

Most annoying thing about this time of year? People who insist that Christmas is secular and people who insist The Holidays are religious. [Edited to read the way I meant it to read, thanks, tactisle]

Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color? Cranberry and Birch wood

What do/did you leave for Santa? My hearty thanks

[ETA: I've got to be more careful making posts this long after while I'm nipping at the egg nog. Shame on me, heh.]

Chuck Workman's Precious Images featuring clips from 500 (according to YouTube) movies. This moves even faster than the previous clip and is a miracle of editing.

The videos here and in the following post are two amazing pieces by Chuck Workman. The first was commissioned by Turner Classic Movies in 1994 to commemorate 100 years of American cinema. The second is called Precious Images and features clips from hundreds of movies (500 according to YouTube)

These videos remind me of why I love movies so much (as if I could forget.) there are time I wish I was a movie so I could move people by casting flickering light and shadow on a 30 foot screen.




ETA:Hmmmmm, it seems that LJ will only let me embed one video without tinkering with the code which I don't feel like doing this morning. I'll put the other video in another post.

Feh.

Fast away the old year passes and all that jazz! Take the first sentence (or two) from the first post of each month of 2007. That's your year in review.

January, 2007
I realize that not everyone is going to want to details of what happened to me yesterday so I'm puttin' it behind an LJ-Cut. Read or skip at your pleasure

The good news is that by 9pm last night, I could actually laugh about this. Heh.


February, 2007
Back from Atlantic City. It was, um interesting.

Saw my beautiful boy last night, we had pizza for dinner, chicken for breakfast and fleshly delights in between.

March, 2007
Children's Books That Never Made It

April, 2007
The last 24 hours have been a whole lot better than the 24 hours before.

May, 2007
A hearty thank you to 1cmf and onecrazymother for the awesome May Day party! Good food and good people and mead and fire and (plenty of home brewed) mead and did I mention good, no make that great, people. And mead.

June, 2007
Ahhhh, I have much posting to do so expect a flurry of activity on your friend's page.

Several times over the past few weeks he's shown up.

July, 2007
In honor of the release of AFI's new countdown of the 100 greatest movies of all time, I decided to see how many of them I've never seen.

August, 2007
Someone LJ friended me, someone I don't know, who doesn't seem to be a friend of a friend, someone I've never spoken to or interacted with in the community we have in common polyamory. I read his journal and frankly there's something that creeps me out about it. Needless to say, I did not friend him back.

September, 2007
So according to OK Cupid I used to be a Random Gentle Sex Master (The Playstation) but now I’m a *Deliberate* Gentle Sex Master (The Dirty Little Secret) . Apparently the difference is that The Playstation is just dating and fucking for fucks sake and the DLS is open to (and maybe even looking for) a relationship as they fuck for fucks sake.

October, 2007
Cripes! It's October 1? WTF happened to September??!!

Time is sort of like a pair of runaway horses pulling the stagecoach of life.

November, 2007
1842 Words.

December, 2007
[I'm leaving this post public for a few hours, eventually I will put it under a f-lock. Maybe.]

Just in case anyone was wondering, I'm not doing any stinking voluntary screening of my journal. I'm a god damned adult so people can assume that anything I post is for adults. My profile warns people.

I stumbled upon a program called LJ Archives that lets you download all of your LJ entries so you can browse through them It says you can also analyze them but I haven't tested that yet.

I have no idea if I have any practical use for this but it looked cool.

[I'm leaving this post public for a few hours, eventually I will put it under a f-lock. Maybe.)

Just in case anyone was wondering, I'm not doing any stinking voluntary screening of my journal. I'm a god damned adult so people can assume that anything I post is for adults. My profile warns people.

Although I believe that a society has the responsibility to provide for the general safety of children, I refuse to be responsible for other people's inability to monitor their children on-line. If the idea of talk about sex, kink, alternative lifestyle and he general rantings of a (sometimes) madwoman will warp the delicate minds of little Hortense and Percy.....lock 'em in a box like veal.

Any posts that deal with explicit material (heck, most of my posts for that matter) are f-locked and that should be sufficient. This idea of "OMG! UR WURDS MUST B LABLED AS DURTY BCUZ OF THE KIDZ" is nothing more than censorship and I put it in the same category as book burning.

Fuck That.

Let me end by relating a story. As I have mentioned, I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household. I mean like crazy fundie. No Christmas, no birthdays, very austere. My mother was the model of probity. when I was about 10 my mother and 2 of her friends accidentally took a group of us kids to an R rated move (Macon County Line, in case you're wondering. It's a long story about how this could happen but trust me it wasn't intentional and all three women were horrified when the movie opened with a bare breasted woman asking her lover to return to bed.)

Anyway, the next morning, we were driving to church, the whole family in the car, and I turned to my mother and asked her what the word "screw" meant (one of the lines in the movie referred to someone who, "screwed his daughter." Nice movie for a 10 year old, heh.) Did my mother freak out? Did she curse the film makers or the theater for showing such filth? Did she wail about how the world was destroying her childrens' innocence?

Nope.

She calmly said, "That word means a man and woman are having personal relations with each other. It's a vulgar word and not one that we use in our home." Question answered. (She told me in later years that she almost died when I blurted the question out. I never noticed it.)

I might have a huge axe to grind about a lot of things my mother did but this was one of her shining moments. My mother lived with the attitude that she was responsible for setting the moral tone for her children and incidents where we were exposed to something outside the her moral limits were an opportunity to discuss and reinforce what she believed; she seized it as an opportunity to parent.

It's too bad more parents don't adopt her attitude.

Somewhere around the :30 my eyes fell out of my head.



I think I knew somewhere in the back of my head that there was such a thing as a butt implant but this is re-god-damn-diculous. The cackling makes this clip even more WTF.

I hope you're not eating or drinking anything. Enjoy!