Subtle, Yet Effective Mood Adjustment v. 2.0

Still around, just staying quiet and dealing with my own life for the moment. However, this article bears reading if only because it illustrates what I and others have talked about with regards to coalitions and political action.

What's Right with Utah by Lisa Duggan (from the June 24, 2009 issue of The Nation)

In the wake of the Prop 8 protests last fall, an energized LGBT policy organization, Equality Utah, formulated an ingenious strategy. Drawing on the claims of LDS officials and some conservative state politicians that their support of "traditional" marriage isn't antigay, and their assurances that they support other basic protections for LGBT citizens, Equality Utah drew up a list of just such protections. University of Utah law professor Cliff Rosky, a member of Equality Utah's legal panel, branded it the Common Ground Initiative (CGI).

Equality Utah then invited supporters of Prop 8 to demonstrate their lack of antigay rancor by supporting six legislative initiatives on the CGI platform: healthcare rights, fair workplace rights, fair housing rights, inheritance rights, domestic partnerships and clarification of Amendment 3 (removal of the "Super" part of the DOMA). Equality Utah activists also launched a mass public relations campaign to build the Common Ground identity, and now Common Ground buttons, stickers and signs can be seen all over Salt Lake City, gracing shirts, cars, homes, businesses and lawns.

[NOTE: If there's anyone from Utah on my flist, I'd be really interested how all of this looks now since the article was written in June of last year.]

via hederahelix and others:

Mary Daly, dead at 81.

When I was a senior in high school, Mrs. Wilson, my medical biology teacher, asked me to read through and do basic edits on her thesis (written on yellow legal pads. It was an adventure). One of the main books she was working with was Daly's Gyn/Ecology. Several years later, I would read Audre's "Open Letter." Both remain important works in my own development.

2009 did not totally suck for me. I was without job (still am at the moment but things are looking up), didn't have a whole lot of cash in my pockets and had some glancing blows with depressive moments but. But. I have this person in my life who simultaneously drives me to distraction and loves me, several communities that I am a part of that feed me, and I'm alive. For that I will never ever stop being grateful.

On the writing front:

NaNo showed me that when I finally put down substantial words in my original fic there's also some world building that needs to happen in the forefront. Knowing that, I was able to step away gracefully and not feel like a punk.

I wrote smaller, tighter, and was happy with it. Knowing what I want to say and being solid about it felt more important in some cases. I'm not big with the word output. I may never be. For the moment, that's okay with me.

That said, here are a few things that came out that I never posted about:

Comment Fic. If you need to write something quick and dirty, comment_fic is the place for it. Everything is prompt based.

Leverage

Eliot/any, Like Water for Chocolate (in this movie, a talented cook's food has magical powers over the people who eat it)

Eliot, He wasn't just trained to fight, he was bred/born to.

Eliot/Hardison, prison protection turns into a prison romance

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Poo (yes, Pooh. Hush up now)
Christopher Robin & Pooh, promise you won’t forget me

**

SGA

Triplicate, OT4 (John/Teyla/Rodney/Ronon) for non_mcsmooch

The Sharpest Edge ( Teyla Emmagan/Cameron Mitchell/John Sheppard, R) for sg_rarepairings (an AU in which Teyla, Cameron and John are up to no good.)

Also a 3_ships entry to be revealed on January 6th.

I have a fic for Glee on tap as well as Saving Grace/The Unit for apocabigbang. There are still stories I want to do/finish for SGA and I'm going to dig through to see which ones have legs. I'm not at all fannish for SG:U. I've watched most of the episodes but it's just not doing it for me. Criminal Minds has suddenly become big in our house, thanks to reruns via A&E and ION TV. Seriously, we sat through a day long Criminal Minds marathon on Christmas Day.

On other fannish fronts, I have to remind myself that I cannot work three cons in a year ever again (not including BASCon because hell, that's home). 'Nuff said.

****

Welding starts up again in late January. I have some additional pictures and impressions from this last semester I'll put up sometime soon. But I'm glad I'm taking another class and I'll be talking to the admissions office to have my status changed to matriculating. I'm going to go for the Associate's in Welding Technology. Oh, and I had my first paying welding gig. I made hammers for one of my classmates out of scrap metal handles and weldments:

Behold the power of the hammers!

Hey, $5.00 is $5.00. I used an E6010 stick to weld the handles on. Heh.


And that's it. Happy New Year everyone!

(and holiday cards are going out. I just didn't get to it which is why I bought Season's Greeting cards. It's still the season and still a greeting, so there.)

I bought Shirley a new iPod for Christmas since her old one was stolen while we were in SoCal at Thanksgiving; our car was tossed right outside her sister's house while we were sleeping.

Anyway, I'm in the process of updating her copy of iTunes to iTunes 9 (horrors, I know) and I've run into a snag. The download keeps defaulting to a drive that's not there. I suspect that it may have something to do with how Shirley disconnected her iPod the last time she had it hooked up to that system. I ran into the same problem with my iPod and only because I had mine on hand and jockeyed it all back and forth did it finally work. I don't have that option this time.

So, I'm going to play with this some more, but in the meantime, if I end up having to do a full re-install to sort this, will she lose her iTunes library or will it be okay? Anyone with some insight would be most helpful.

I'm finally getting around to doing my holiday cards so give a shout out if you'd like one (name, address, etc). Since I keep a Excel spreadsheet of my addresses (yes, organization!), please let me know if your address changed or any other pertinent information. Comments are screened so no worries.

but seeing the artist line up for the revamped Lilith Fair makes me want to go. Corinne Bailey Rae, Jill Scott, Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu??? Really? I might even be able to entice Shirley into it because Emmylou Harris is going to be there too. And, and Janelle Monae's name is listed as well...*squee!* I'll even admit a passing interest in Sugarland (hush).

Now, I'd be blowing smoke about going but one of the cities tapped for the show is San Francisco. No dates yet but hey, local show and since I don't feel like hauling my ass to Michigan for the festival there (seriously, I like regular bathrooms and sleeping in a tent for a week is no longer my cup of tea), this is now under serious consideration. So, we'll see. Hopefully 2010 will rock on the job front and going to shows will become possible again.

and at the guide I'm using has the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) as today's reading. In the spirit of that as well as needing some funny, here's the MagnifiCat (srsly) from the LOLcat Bible.

Mary's Song of Praise - the MagnifiCat (srsly)

46 Mary sed "Ceiling Cat is laik a big deal,
47 Mai I is happy about Ceiling Cat...
48 bcz he kepted me in maind an now evribodi knowz i can haz cheezburgr.
49 Thank u Ceiling Cat, u iz cool.
50 U iz niec to evribodi.
51 Xcept peeplz who doant dizrv it LOL.
52 U haz pwned teh r00lrz
whiel stil bein niec to teh n00bz.
53 U givd cookies to teh hungri
whiel u tolded teh rich "Niec trai."
54 U wuz niec to Israel
55 an to all Abraham's famili liek u promist."

56 Mary staied wif Elizabeth three munfz. Den she wented hoam.

We're off to SoCal in a few hours for a (blessedly) short Thanksgiving sojourn amongst the relatives. Y'all know the drill: intermittent net access but I'll check in when I can.

Be excellent to one another.

ladyjax

It's official. All of you on my flist have failed, FAILED I TELL YOU! For not being aware of the following gem (and telling me about it):

Cookin' with Coolio

I'm torn between being appalled and amused beyond belief.

The Ghetto Gourmet? His tag line is Shaka Zulu?? His assistants are called The Sauce Girls??? Oh sweet Jesus. There's questionable language, the sexed up presence of women in the background (at some point, they get aprons) as well as, ahem, short advice on how to use your cooking skills to get your lady into bed.

While showing off his knife skills in episode one, Coolio observes "I'm pretty good with a sword, nunchucks and a pistol."

Recipes include Spinach Your Kids will Eat, Tricked Out Westside Tilapia, and Fall Off The Bone Chicken. I'm still stuck at The Sauce Girls.

But wait, there's more: Cookin' with Coolio: Five Star Meals at a 1 Star Price.

A cooking throwdown between Rachel Ray and Coolio would be awesome since the recent (bloodless) imbroglio between Martha and Rachel was more light than heat. The Boston Globe (see, even they knew something was up, people!) has an article about it called Straight Outta Coolio. They note that the conversation was "edited for a family paper." *snerk*

(Note: When Shirley rolls out her cooking show (Did You Read the Directions?) I will not be standing behind her in high heels, looking cute, and taking the special ingredients out of my cleavage.)

We saw it this evening. Best part of the showing: the woman sitting next to me who was having all kinds of reactions, up to and including tearing up at a certain point. I handed her tissues which made her chuckle.

Quickie review: ( I don't think these are spoileriffic but I'll put them behind a cut anyway )