Silly Site o' the Day

Wow, the record's broken. Yesterday, for the first time in years, this blog had no new content. Sorry about that! I knew I was tired, but I didn't realize how tired. No excuse, I just forgot to blog here. I'm not much better today, but it's Monday and I have no choice but to go to work. Here, have an Apple Rumor Generator (via Gerard) to play with.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Tom Peyer, it's Jesus Christ's Blog, and it's just so wrong. Off to the Kids' Comic Con in a couple hours; should be a lot of fun.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Way too tired to even shower, let alone blog.



Sometimes I wish it were that easy for me.

The only thing keeping me up at this point is my refusal to go into the bedroom and don earplugs to drown out the noises being made by our basement neighbors during one of their (fairly infrequent) Friday night soirees.

Silly Site o' the Day

Thanks a lot Augie, I've now become a Desktop Tower Defense "widow"... Oh well, seems only fair if Rob's become a baseball "widower"...

Silly Site o' the Day

Wow, it feels great to open up those saved bookmarks again! Some of them are a bit out of date, of course. Anybody still want a used Easter egg generator (via Gerard)?

Another Secretaries Day Come and Gone...

..and nobody got me flowers or lunch or a card or anything. Feh. I miss working in an office where people pay attention to such things.

ComicMix Reminder

My regular Wednesday column is up. Crazy busy at the office, can't blog again for awhile, either here or there.

Silly Site o' the Day

I feel about viral videos the same way I feel about any other commercials -- I may not be in favor of the point of the thing (which is usually to Create A Need Then Fill It, all in the service of the great god Mammon), but I can still appreciate the crafting and wit that goes into a particularly amusing one. Such is the case with one currently making the rounds (I last saw it at Colleen's blog) called Men With Cramps. Try to ignore that they're attempting to sell you heat wraps.

Silly Site o' the Day

Now that sheloshim has almost passed and Mom's settled in, I've given myself permission to do things like getting my hair cut (Mom's idea, after all) and starting to listen to music again and reintroducing the Silly Sites to this blog. Laura actually did the last, at my request, for which I heartily thank her. One of the sites that's been giving me lots of smiles lately is my choice for today. It's called I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?, and it features what's called "lolcats" -- cats and other animals that inspire leetspeak-type captions, most of which are cute and very amusing. Naturally it went right into my Teh Cute category in my Bloglines subs. Highly recommended.

Jiggity-Jig

That was probably the fastest, least stressful return home I've ever had from Mom's place. Don't much feel like blogging, particularly since my boss called me a half hour ago (nothing like taking a vacation day when your boss decides he's going to call you anyway), but I made a couple promises yesterday and I intend to keep 'em.

First to Ragnell's belated birthday present. For my money, nobody does Green Lantern butt like Alan Davis:



And now in response to Rachelle asking for my "favourite nerdy possession" -- well, I have lots of original art, but my favorites have to be the ones that hang on our bedroom walls. We took 'em down to get a "group shot" of all three:



That's two from Colleen Doran on the left, one a print and one an original (my prize for naming A Distant Soil's letter column) and our wedding gift from the aforementioned Alan Davis on the right. (The blank frame above that was our wedding gift from lettering goddess Pat Prentice, which will now hold a family portrait of me, my two brothers and my parents.)

Here are close-ups of the two originals:


Seren by Colleen


Monstress and Hulk by Alan

Hey Robin, can you get that last one a little closer, since you've taken it down from the bedroom wall and everything?



Oh, um, never mind...

Shorn of the Dead

So after our mandatory visit to Social Security to get Dad's payments transferred to Mom (who didn't tear up at all like her daughter did looking at his birth and marriage and death certificates all laying there in a row), she directed me to the local walk-in haircutters for my $7 semi-annual shearing, which new 'do I may or may not share with y'all depending on whether I want Robin to take my photo when I get home. Sure made it easier to drive without those stray strands getting in my eyes! Lots of online "obligations" are starting to build up and will also receive attention upon my return to Bronkers. I did want to wish Robin a happy St. George's Day (thanks for the reminder, Bryan!), Cat a (belated?) happy birthday, as well as send shout-outs to Lisa Fortuner (will post that panel for you tomorrow, Ragnall) and Rachelle Gougoin on her 100th post (will also post my "favourite nerdy possession" for you tomorrow, Rachelle). Oh, and today's must-reads include Norman Lear on John Edwards' barber who happens to be his barber as well; and watching Atrios do all sorts of machinations in assuring the populist masses he's not an A-list insider political blogger like Kos.

Silly Site o' the Day

How about some Silly Questions? (submitted by kids).

Milestone Notes

Happy birthdays to two swell comics gals, Lisa from Sequentially Speaking and the fabulous world-traveler Marie Javins!

Earth Day at the Jersey Shore

Today Mom and I practiced our recycling. The pantry is cleaned out of the foods Dad liked but Mom doesn't, the suitcases with the accumulated Vegas tchatchkes have been unpacked and I took about half of those (shut up, I will too find a use for that mini-wok set and those photo coasters!) and Mom gave me a very special gift, a gold bracelet that Dad used to wear to shul every Shabbos. I'm not a jewelry person but I think that's going to become as much a part of me as my wedding ring. We also recycled Mom's printer toner at Staples. Of course, I drove there and to the supermarket, so I wonder if that cancelled out all of that recycling...

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm bringing back the Silly Sites to this blog while Elayne is away, and I thought an appropriate start would be... SILLY PUTTY! That's right, let's see if you can imagine what happens when people drop a 50 pound lump of silly putty off a seven story office building. What, you don't want to imagine it? Then watch it here (Google video). I'll admit, I expected something different. I guess I don't know my silly putty very well.

If you want to check out Elayne's previous silly sites, I've made a handy-dandy but slow loading link for you.

Wifi Are Us

Well, someone in my Mom's neighborhood has Netgear's network -- or maybe it's the entire complex. Good news for me, at any rate. Spending most of my time with Mom, of course, so Laura's input is still welcome, but between whatever tasks she gives me I can at least keep up with blog stuff, ComicMix, etc. Have I mentioned yet how cool it is to have a MacBook with wifi capability? Off to put batteries in whatever still doesn't have batteries in it...

An Atheist Responds to a Boob

Before I go, I'd like to urge folks to read the entire entry from "mapantsula," a professor at Virginia Tech and an atheist, in response to some nonsense from Dinesh D'Souza. Some excerpts:

I know that brutal death can come unannounced into any life, but that we should aspire to look at our approaching death with equanimity, with a sense that it completes a well-walked trail, that it is a privilege to have our stories run through to their proper end. I don’t need to live forever to live once and to live completely. It is precisely because I don’t believe there is an afterlife that I am so horrified by the stabbing and slashing and tattering of so many lives around me this week, the despoliation and ruination of the only thing each of us will ever have.

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.

I am to be found on the drillfield with a candle in my hand. "Amazing Grace" is a beautiful song, and I can sing it for its beauty and its peacefulness. I don’t believe in any god, but I do believe in those people who have struggled through pain and found beauty and peace in their religion. I am not at odds with them any more than I am at odds with Americans when we sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" just because I am not American. I can sing "Lean on Me" and chant for the Hokies in just the same way and for just the same reason...

We think the pain is complete and absolute. We know it is.

We think that nothing can heal these hearts, that time can only take the sharpness off the agony, that only in time can beauty be wholeheartedly seen again or laughter felt deep inside.

We insist there is no sense or meaning to be made of this massacre. There was only sense and meaning to be created within the lives of each person gunned down. That is why we are horrified by it. That is precisely why it is so horrific.

We don't believe these people have died for anything: God's plan, as a beacon to the rest of us, to be a vivid memento mori for all. We just believe they have died, brutally and without mercy. We refuse to lie to grieving mothers out of some patronising sense that a pleasant myth is more respectful than a terrible truth.

Those of us with the slightest shred of decency do not tell widows to deal with it, to get over it. That the world can be callous is no reason to be so myself. I know that no family could ever get over this loss, that no family should ever be expected to get over this loss -- either by themselves, by religious rhetoricians bearing false platitudes, or by inane political pundits -- but that not getting over the loss does not preclude some other kind of happiness, some other source of joy, at some other time. Not now, not in this moment, not when they have moved on, but only when it comes to them one day, like light dawning slowly.

We know the world is cold, and that only people can make it warmer.

My only qualm with it is that this person has chosen to remain anonymous; while I certainly understand why, it tends to undercut his or her credibility a bit.

Off to the Land of Dial-Up

Wish me luck. I'll be installing AOL 7.0 onto Mom's clunky machine (which isn't advanced enough for 9.0) all by self this afternoon. With any luck my Macbook will find an open wifi connection somewhere in the vicinity; if not, I probably won't be posting here or uploading stuff to ComicMix for the next few days, and I leave you in the more than capable hands of Laura.

Pencil Me In, Lance

Because Studio 60's coming back.

The 411 on 420

So I get this weird text mail on my phone. Bear in mind I do not text. I don't even know how. And as I understand it we have to pay for even an incoming text message, so I'm not thrilled to receive a spam. So hey, since I'm being charged I might as well look, and the gobbledygook message I got was somewhat amusing and had to do with marijuana and I couldn't figure out why. Was it one of my Firesign friends having a go? Nope, didn't even recognize the return number. I deleted it, somewhat perplexed.

Then I read this post by Grace and realized that today is marijuana day, and it's quite possible the text message came through at precisely 4:20 PM, I didn't even think to look at the time stamp. So maybe some toker-hacker got a hold of some cell phone list and just sent a pot bomb or something. I'm almost impressed, most tokers can't seem to harness that much focused energy to do something on that level...

Overwhelmed

I'm headed off to Mom's dialup-only house tomorrow so this may be my last chance to blog for a few days. All these bookmarked posts are driving me nuts, so it's well past time for a blogaround.

• Via Oliver Willis, the emblem at right and a link to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

• Pam Spaulding marked Wednesday as the 11th annual Day of Silence begun by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network to raise awareness of anti-LGBT harassment and other discrimination, particularly in schools. While I see their point, I'm uncomfortable with the "silent treatment" and unsure of its effectiveness. When I was a "fag hag" in college, almost all my many gay friends chose to be as vocal as possible in showing the straights that they were every bit as entitled to lead their lives bully-free as anybody else, the result being that they were much more fun and interesting people than most of my straight friends.

• Over at Shakesville, Brynn tells of a flawed experiment involving a concert violinist superstar and a mostly indifferent rush hour subway crowd. I'm sorry the guy made so little money busking, but the context seems to be lost on the researchers' conclusions. It's not that people don't care about beauty or art or good music (although it could be that not many of them are into classical stuff, I know I couldn't tell my Menuhin from my Yo-Yo Ma), it's that they probably indulge their passions in non-work hours, during their leisure time. Commuting time is qualitatively different from actual leisure time. When I commuted via subway I read or dozed, and now when I commute by car I listen to the radio or CDs, but my concentration is primarily on the road. Time and place, people, time and place.

• Also at Shakesville, Melissa remembers her great granddad, and reminds readers that she gears her blog for her primary audience and has no intention of changing it to suit a few squirming whiners.

• Speaking of words: Bryant Gries believes we should take back the word "elite" and make it into something to be proud of. I don't agree, I think it's an exclusionary word no matter who uses it. But I do think we ought to employ it more often to characterize rich Republicans who don't care a whit for those less fortunate than them (rather than rich Democrats who do, in the tradition of FDR). James Walcott warns us to beware of people who refer to their innocence of racial prejudice using skin colors that don't exist in nature, at least on this planet. Lindsay Beyerstein decries the way people avoid substantive discussion on important issues by crying "politicization!" every time those issues are raised. This is doubtless part of what Lance Mannion defines as "Orc logic," which he notes as "extremely useful to people whose politics and moral code are devoted exclusively to defending their money and their privileges." And John Rogers -- who's quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers -- explains the idea of words in context to Time Magazine. Also, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden has a comprehensive meta-post about comments moderation, and she and Patrick even created a certificate for bloggers who feel they need an imprimatur to do basic blog maintenance:

I wipe comment spam regularly as soon as I see it, and I'd do the same for trolls if I had any, but Pen-Elayne is a largely comment-free blog. Not by choice, but I just don't seem to get tons of comments.

• Amid all the nonsense about there being no atheists in foxholes or on grieving campuses, atheist PZ Myers' Parable of the Wall bears repeated reading.

• Via Mark at BoingBoing comes Miranda July's wonderful book promotion site idea. you'll never look at your refrigerator and stovetop the same way again!

• "I got guns, they got guns / All God's children got guns," as the Marx Brothers sang. Mark Morford believes that

If all guns were banned outright tomorrow, or even if we took the strict British/Swedish approach and only allowed them for hunting and in highly controlled shooting clubs, well, guns would slowly but surely disappear from the popular culture... I know, it would ruin the all-American fun of shooting. I realize a beloved American hobby would have to be replaced by, well, roughly 10 thousand other options... Hell, we've done it before, with all sorts of other harsh social practices and beliefs that, we finally realized, served the soul of our species not at all and actually caused much deep harm. Slavery. Hangings. The slaughter of Indians. Monarchical rule. Chamber pots. Flamethrowers. Smoking on airplanes. Women's suffrage. Eugenics.

Great point; so what if one stupid, destructive hobby is lost when we have so many other ways to occupy our leisure time (many of which are almost as stupid and destructive)?

• Hey, bingo is still a popular leisure activity, at least with some bloggers. Both Zuzu and Amanda Marcotte pass along a bingo card made by Lauredhel consisting of all the typical anti-feminist responses liable to pop up on blogs. Not to be outdone, Karen Healey runs with the idea and comes up with a version specifically dealing with anti-feminist comics folk.

• Speaking of which, Chris Clarke doles out some excellent advice to "concern troll" anti-feminist guys who still don't get it. Skippy gets it exactly right about the connection between the horror at Virginia Tech and the dangers of dismissing cyber-stalkers and online death threats. And Lindsay has a reminder about Take Back the Blog! Day next Saturday, April 28. (Lindsay also incites us to action in an effort to stop a secretive postal rate hike. Seems some periodicals are more equal than others...) And would you believe Feministing is going to be celebrating their third blogiversary? They're doing so with a party next Friday, April 27. I think I might actually put in an appearance at this one for a change, current job permitting.

• Belledame's hosted the 36th Carnival of Feminists in three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). I'm sure I'll get to that triptych right after I finish the other one, Rich Watson's 3-part interview with Alex Simmons (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Rich also has a very thoughtful piece on the imminent rerelease of Disney's Song of the South. I'm in favor of the release, myself, but I'd like to see a DVD extra by, say, Leonard Maltin explaining the context of the times. Leonard's very good at that, back when he was teaching cartoon classes at the New School I remember he did a terrific contextual intro to Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves.

• I hope Budgie is getting paid in pounds instead of dollars!

• Happy belated birthday to my neighbor Keith DeCandido!

• Echidne wonders why obsessing over preventing potential life is more important to some people than protecting actual life. (Because the forced-childbirth folks aren't about saving lives to begin with, of course.)

• Lastly, Susie Madrak opines that maybe cell phone use isn't the main culprit killing the bees. Frankly, genetically screwed-around-with corn seems a much likelier suspect to me.

Will try to post again in the morning before I leave for Jay's house to pick up Mom, but no promises...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Datsa really wanted to look out the computer room window this morning:



So I put the bathtub chair (which I keep under the vanity when not in use) under the window so he could at least look out, which he did briefly, but mostly he found the chair fascinating, as it enabled him to put his scent on the surrounding furniture:



Robin says he's gotten up on the sill before, but I can't recall the last time; the sills in this apartment's windows are pretty narrow.

Who's on First

A friend provided us with online access to Season 3 of Dr. Who, so to celebrate David Tennant's 36th birthday yesterday we watched the first three episodes. Just as Mary Sue-delicious as most episodes in the previous two seasons. I thought there was less of a sense of horrific danger in them, possibly because Martha is portrayed as a more competent and intelligent character than Rose (who was all adrenalin and emotion), but I don't watch the show for the danger factor anyway so this didn't bother me. I'd forgotten how much I'd missed the expository conversation, which of course was mandatory in terms of the Doctor bringing Martha up to speed. And there was a cute throwaway gag in, I think, the second episode where the Doctor recommended the final Harry Potter book, which he'd greatly enjoyed and which had brought him to tears. Considering Tennant's role in the Potter movie series I thought that was a nice wink. A very enjoyable evening, but of course it means I'm that much more behind in blog-reading. Will try to catch up and do a blogaround by day's end.

Outward Directed

My latest It's All Good column is up at ComicMix. This is one of the longer ones, and actually consists of a Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts review, which I haven't done in at least a couple years. But the impetus for the column (besides the fact that I'd been seeking this comic since I first read about it a couple months ago, and itching to review it for the past couple weeks but couldn't until now because of personal circumstances) was the tragedy at Virginia Tech, how despairing it all is to even an already-numbed psyche like mine, how so many of us yearn for inspiration at times like this and how some of us find it in myths and stories.

Jay is back in NJ now; Mom follows on Saturday, when I pick her up at Jay's house and drive her down to south Jersey. I will likely be AFK (Away From Keyboard) during the period between April 21 and 24, and Laura has graciously agreed to step in once more to provide Pen-Elayne with new daily content. She will also be reintroducing the Silly Site o' the Day to this blog (remember, the whole Link o' Silliness idea was Leah's, so it's fitting that Laura restarts it since she was close to Leah as well), which I will then pick up again upon my return. Because, while we all work through our grief in different ways, anything that brings a smile or lightens a heart or makes a day just a bit more bearable is A Good Thing.

Forward into the Past

As I've elected to listen to some Firesign during my commutes, and particularly during the long drive home from Mom's house next Tuesday, I figured it was high time I organized my Firesign CD collection. Lo and behold I'm missing a few -- yes, me, the former Firehead Head! -- so Robin's going to be transferring the following from my LP collection onto CD so I don't have to search for 'em: Not Insane (1972), Lawyer's Hospital (1982), The Three Faces of Al (1984) and Eat or Be Eaten (1985). I could have sworn I have the CD+G version of EoBE somewhere, particularly because the '80s were my era, when I was actually putting out their newsletter -- but hey, that was over 20 years ago, it could be anywhere now. (Rob's going to buy me the EOBE and Martian Space Party VHS tapes, which we'll then transfer to DVD along with my VHS copies of Weirdly Cool and probably throwing in Everything You Know Is Wrong as well before that tape becomes hopelessly warped-not-in-a-good-way.) Also need to transfer 10 of my 11 Dear Friends discs (I have CDs of #1 and #6, the only one I don't own on vinyl), particularly #8 as that's the one with the straight reading of AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh story "Eeyore's Birthday," one of my favorites.

I Scream

Dang, what is it with none of the B&J places around where I live (like in Yonkers) participating in tomorrow's Free Cone Day?

It's Conditional

My condolences to the families and loved ones of all the Virginia Tech students affected by today's tragedy. We will never know if this national heartbreak could have been averted if one young man who felt entitled to the kind of male privilege which says "a woman does not have independent agency and therefore belongs to someone and if that someone isn't me lots of people will pay" had been better educated on the personhood of women, or merely if he just didn't have such easy access to firearms. Feminism is a long-term educational process, but it seems that well-regulated weapons should be a no-brainer. It's clearly stated in the Bill of Rights as the pre-condition for the right to bear arms. Whoever this unbalanced young person was, he almost certainly was not well-regulated.

"Butt-Slammed by the San Diego Chicken"

I missed the Food Network Awards last night, but after reading Anthony Bourdain's scathing and hilarious review of same I'm pretty sure I didn't miss all that much at all.

Twice at the Mall

Another dank, rainy day, but I was prepared to do very little today after yesterday's two trips to Palisades Center. Yes, two trips -- the first was to spend some time with my cousins and their boys (my godson Jonny and his brother Daniel of Daniel's Heroes), and the second to retrieve the credit card that hadn't been returned to me after I bought Jonny and Daniel presents. Good job it's only a half hour from our house! But even with two round-trips across my favorite bridge span, I could have done without that second sojourn, which left me pretty wiped and drearily looking out at the little river formed by the nonstop rain in the section of our U-shaped driveway visible from our front window. I get the feeling tomorrow's commute isn't going to be a heck of a lot of fun; I'm glad I got to drive up and down the Saw Mill River Parkway yesterday when it was sunny and dry.

Posting from Palisades

Robin seems to think that posting from the Apple Store in the Palisades Center is just wrong.

Back to shopping with my cousins...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

I love this yin-yang picture that Robin took with the camera on his phone:



Yes, that's both of them, only you can't see Amy as she's under the chair cover.

Just a Thought

Not to get into "inside baseball" blog stuff again but, given his history, Markos Zuniga saying something stupidly sexist is about as surprising as Don Imus (given his history) saying something stupidly racist.

Oh, and what Barbara said.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

One of my heroes since my college days, when I devoured his books (which I still own) voraciously. He never pulled his punches, as you can see by this short interview he did with In These Times. His unique voice will be fiercely missed.

Paying it Forward

Kathy Kattenburg had a lovely mention of me at both her own blog Liberty Street and at Shakesville, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to greet new readers by not only mention that my new column is up at ComicMix (one in which political folks might actually have some interest, as it talks about a complacent press) but by recommending some good reading from the past week:

• Courtney at Feministing passes along the latest study about dieting that finds the same results as pretty much every other honest, impartial study about dieting. Of course, this is only half the battle. We all need to work at making health a higher priority than outward appearance, by (for instance) educating people to understand that skinny people are not necessarily healthier than fat ones

• Speaking of Feministing, executive editor Jessica Valenti has an article in the Guardian about how the web became a sexists' paradise (thanks Echidne!). And speaking of the Guardian, I must say it's disheartening when Shakesville's Melissa McEwan writes a lovely post in their Comment is Free section about online civility and the first comment is along the lines of "I usually think your posts are pointless vitriol but this one makes sense to me so therefore you're acting like a conservative." Many conservatives still don't get that part of being civil is acknowledging that positive qualities like civility aren't confined to their political view (and that, in fact, espousing many of that view's current ideologies can be the very essence of incivility).

• And speaking of civility, Andrea Rubenstein has another superb post about women and gaming, this one about how many men in the gaming community harass and silence women; be sure to read her follow-up as well. And Rachel Edidin continues her series on how sexual assault is depicted in comics, focusing on rape as a plot device.

• Sara Robinson at Ornicus admits her deep dark secret -- that she took a course (albeit online and remotely) from the infamous Regent University's School of Leadership and Management. Sara gives a pretty fascinating insight into the school, some of which might surprise readers.

• Arthur Hlavaty finds the Mental Floss guide to online -pedias (pedi-im?).

• Keith DeCandido has a great post up about the differences between fanfic and profic (i.e., professional and officially sanctioned media tie-in writing).

• Donna discusses serious subjects that, in a perfect world, would occupy a heck of a lot more blog pixels than the latest stupid remark made by some has-been shock-jock.

• Rachel talks about a police incident that happened on Easter Sunday right near where I work. Glad I don't frequent this neighborhood on weekends!

Speaking of work, my boss has just arrived, so it's time to switch hats again...

On Idiots and Privilege

So way too many people are giving Don Imus way too much publicity by talking about him, and I'm sorry I'm adding to that. The last (and only) time I saw Imus in person was as an audience member of his thankfully-cancelled television show, the name of which I can no longer remember. I do recall that weatherperson Mark McEwen was his sidekick and, while I didn't think the two had any chemistry, neither did I sense any race-based animosity either.

[Incidentally, while I was looking for the name of the show I came across this blast from the past (2002):

Perhaps shock radio is behaving a little bit better these days. But how long will that last? asks the New York Times.

The Times' question has been raised by Infinity Broadcasting's firing last month of two star radio hosts - Gregg Hughes, who is known as Opie, and Anthony Cumia - after they broadcast a live account of a couple having sex in the vestibule of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan last month. The incident was part of a contest to see who would have sex in the riskiest place.

The piece does not address the racist rants on shock-jock Don Imus' show, a favorite of well-known journalists. Imus-watcher Philip Nobile tells Journal-isms that Imus sidekick, producer Bernard McGuirk, discussing the CBS NFL pre-game show today says of the African American Deion Sanders, Boomer Esiason and another white ex-player: "Basically, you have a pimp and two meatheads."

So, you know, none of this is exactly new.]

Anyway, I had been invited to the taping by Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman, who were guests on the show, and wrote about it here. At the time I thought Imus was creepy and craggy and probably a drunk, even though (or especially when) he addressed me directly in the audience Q&A portion, and nothing I've seen since has changed my mind.

So nothing he says surprises me, but I fail to see why he keeps getting airtime -- both to spew his unfunny and unshocking prejudices and to have those same prejudices talked about 24/7 on cable news shows. It also saddens me that so many people aren't getting why the black community is upset over his latest remarks and his bad "apologies" that make things worse. Is there something that clicked with Michael Richards that hasn't clicked with Imus? Did the former incident remove the white privilege blinders more clearly because it featured the "n" word so prominently, while the latter only featured a euphemistic "n" phrase? Or because many people always thought of Imus as somewhat idiotic so him acting true to his perceived character is no big deal, whereas Richards may have been held in slightly higher esteem due to his Seinfeld connections?

Dreamscape and Roadscape

Well, I could certainly have used a bit more sleep. Probably not a good idea to snack and watch TV after we finished our taxes, given the late hour. And Datsa had us up a bit in the night. Naturally, my dreams were full of me driving around at all hours of the day, in my old hometown of Roselle no less (I suspect I'm in for a lot of Roselle-based dreams now), only it was 3:30 AM and still sunny and somehow explainable by whatever time of year it was in the dream. And I didn't question that any more than I questioned why I was suddenly part of the cast of The Office which was a real office and not a TV show. But I did question why my brakes didn't work when I was backing out of that parking spot, and chalked it up to me being so tired I should not have been driving in that condition.

And when I woke up I was very tired.

Robin's noticed I've been a bit more aggressive on the road lately, probably due to tension from everything I've been through, so I'm really trying to watch that now when I drive. I'm slowing down again for amber lights instead of reasoning that I can get through them just fine even without speeding up. And I'm letting whoever wants to pass me go ahead and do so; if someone's that single-minded I'd rather have their car way ahead of me than breathing down my exhaust pipe. In fact, I've tended to slow down whenever I'm doing a reasonable speed (even if it's slightly over the posted limit) and see someone deliberately gaining on me from behind, hoping to scare me into going faster so they can maintain their dangerous speed. That drives me nuts.

But I've also promised Robin I wouldn't go on (at least verbally in the car) about the stupidity of other drivers, so there you are.

Taxing

Well, it took four hours including prepping and organizing all of Robin's deductibles (and finding our way around the differences between last year's and this year's TurboTax program), but our 2006 federal and state taxes are now all e-filed. I think Dad would have been proud.

Blogroll Easter Amnesty

I don't like the term "blogroll amnesty." It implies the people on one's blogroll (that list of names usually found at a blog's sidebar, denoting other bloggers to which that blog links in a spirit of community and recommendation) have committed some sort of crime for which that magnanimous blog has chosen to forgive them. Which of course is not the case; what this expression has actually come to signify among A-listers in the liberal blogosphere is more like blogroll immunity, but for themselves rather than their blogrolls -- the A-listers make public announcements absolving themselves of much of their responsibility (and with great power comes yadda yadda) to encourage community and visibility by conducting consequence-free purges of their blogrolls, instead of just quietly and regularly maintaining and updating them like the rest of us.

And this in turn upsets most of the folks who aren't A-listers and suddenly find their readership and visibility dropping like a stone through no fault of their writing or activism. Some, like skippy, have responded with "since when have blogrolls stopped being recommend reading for your readers, and a personal tool for making surfing the net easier?" (I always thought newsreaders like Bloglines were for the latter.) and promptly began offering reciprocal blogroll links to pretty much everyone.

As I've said in the past, I don't go that far because my blogroll then becomes too unwieldy for my template. Unless I write longwinded daily posts the sidebar content just drops off the bottom. Neither do I want new visitors to be intimidated. But blogs come and go all the time, and I like keeping up with things and adding reasonably to my blogroll as time and maintenance warrant; I try to do it every March during Estrogen Month, for instance.

So when Jim Johnson asked me a second time, I decided to add him as well. Jim wrote, "I have contacted you in the past about linking to my blog because I felt we shared some common ground and could both benefit from hooking up. I’m following up because I still feel that way, and I want to share my message of equality and acceptance with as many people as possible. I hope to help the GLBT community by demonstrating that they have straight advocates within the church, and I also hope to reach straight people who are not as accepting and give them something to think about. The right wing still has politics and Christianity very much intertwined and I feel the other side needs to have a voice to counter that."

I think you can see why I didn't link to Jim previously -- as I'm not a Christian I rejected (and objected to) his "common ground" assumption which was the basis for his request. However, while I am not "within the church" I am most certainly a straight advocate of gay rights. And it's Easter, which is something of a big day for Christians, so I thought it appropriate to add Jim to my blogroll now, with the understanding that my blogroll does not necessarily match my Bloglines subscription list or even my actual reading list (which is considerably shorter than those 770 feeds or I'd never get anything else done). Welcome to the blogroll, Jim!

Oh, and in case you haven't seen it, do check out Terrance's post What You Link Is What You Get on Pam's House Blend and Melissa McEwan's On Mentoring and Patronage at Shakesville.

On the Evolution of Religion

This is my contribution to the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm, or blogburst, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

Tomorrow is Easter, a pagan festival dedicated to the great mother goddess, or goddess of fertility, depending on whence the people of the moment hailed. It's also the one time in four years when the calendars of five major Christian faiths, all of whom mark the day as the time when Jesus was resurrected, coincide with one another. In addition, Passover is still being celebrated; I know this because The Ten Commandments is on TV as I type (a terrific story even given the utter lack of historical evidence for any basis in truth). Also, there's a bunch of matzoh in the house. And I'm sure people more familiar with Islam and with Asian religions can cite other festivals of faith going on now.

And all of this has always fascinated me, the way different human beings all have different myths to explain the unknowable, to give comfort in hard times, and to celebrate with community the changing of the seasons and years. Of particular interest is the similar stories that weave their way through different cultures (such as the uncanny correlations in rituals following a loved one's death between Judaism and Hinduism, the oldest major religion and the third largest in the world today) and evolve to suit the times (such as how much Christian celebrations appropriated from pagan festivals). Religion, like government, is an ever-changing aspect of our civilization.

But people who seek to use religion for their own gain count on adherents tend not to see things that way. And when they're successful, the result is not very good for many of those adherents. As The Truffle notes:

If you look at how theocracies are run, you notice that good works are not high on the list of priorities. Theocrats generally do not spread God's will by opening shelters for needy families. They do not collect clothes to give to poor people. They don't run soup kitchens or teach songs to kids. They don't publish religious story books. They don't do anything constructive or fun. No, theocrats spend a lot of time banning things and punishing people.

People who crave rule by religion have a very narrow, very myopic, and often very opposite interpretation of said religion than do the flocks of the faithful.

There are a lot of up-sides to community, but one of the down-sides is that they do often tend to react like sheep. (Not for nothing does the ovian motif keep cropping up in religious observances.) While there is strength in numbers, there's also a coresponding weakness, a desire to blend in with the crowd and not question traditions. But civilization, language, everything about us as humans is an ongoing, evolving thing. Nothing stays the same over time, and our relatively short individual lifespans can work against our understanding of this basic truism. Nothing is immutable. And yes, two millennia or six or more is a good run for a belief system, but it's a blink of an eye in the overall cosmic scheme of things.

Ordinarily I wouldn't mind so much if people can't accept that. It's a lot to absorb, and if it goes against what one has been taught for much of one's life it's no wonder so many can't grasp it. But when "my religion is immutable" turns into "and therefore its precepts are the only ones that are true and I must make everyone follow them, by force if necessary," that's where I have major problems.

Our government is set up to prevent the tyranny of the majority. I have never been a member of a majority religion, nor am I ever likely to be. My religion is, for me, usually a private matter between me and my deity of choice. I am as uncomfortable with public spectacles and displays of religion as I am with public displays of jingoism. It all reminds me just a bit too much of Leni Riefenstahl films. It's bad enough that so much of what's going on in the US now is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s; I don't need self-appointed religious leaders acting like that too.

Besides, I'm not all that enamored of any religion that relegates women, half the population, to second-class status. And unfortunately that's most of the major religions operating in this country today. Including the one into which I was born.

Recommended so far: blog posts against theocracy by Tristero's series and Terrance at Pam's House Blend. To find out more about how to get involved to keep private religious matters separate from the public sphere where folks of many beliefs -- and no beliefs -- have to work together, visit First Freedom First.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

A bit belated, as I conked last night before I could post.



Amy waits for the spring blossoms.



Datsa waits for dinner.

Outward Directed

It's hard -- so hard! -- to bring myself out of introspection mode. Anything can trigger crying jags again. Last night's episode of Scrubs is a case in point, where a favorite character passed away from brain injuries sustained in an auto accident. What's that saying about something hitting way too close to home?

But it's equally true that much of the healing process after the death of a parent needs to be the realization (emotionally, not just intellectually) that not only are many other people going through what you're going through, but that life goes on outside our grieving selves, and we need to be a part of it. So I'm tentatively going to try to do my first "blogaround" since Dad's death.

• It being April, this is National Financial Literacy Month, and Colleen Doran is posting tons and tons of useful financial information for freelancers.

• April is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month (with yesterday being Blog Against Sexual Violence Day). Over at Girl Wonder, Rachel Ededin is planning "a month's worth of columns about sexual assault issues in comic books and how they correspond to real life." And Natasha at Pacific Views has her own story as a victim of domestic terrorism; it won't be easy to read but I recommend you try.

• Via Big Brass Blog, April 6-8 has been designated for a Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. I'll put up my contribution sometime before the end of the weekend.

• When my cousin and his family (including my godson Jonny and his brother, the leader of Daniel's Heroes) paid one of their shiva calls last week, they remarked on the fish emblems affixed to the back of my car. The kids though they were actual Jesus fish (which, you know, why would I have that?) until they looked more closely. Well, the person who supplied me those emblems, Nona Williams at Ring of Fire, is having a contest for a new design, according to her fellow judge PZ Myers. I wish I could think of something for Robin to design and send in, but I believe Nona & co. really covered all the bases with "gefilte" (Hebrew-type lettering), "sushi" (Asian-type lettering) and "'N Chips" -- those are certainly our big three.

• Speaking of designs, I was amused by both Lauren's Diagram of a Blog (which really seems to apply more to blogs that garner lots of heated discussion in their comments section than to something like Pen-Elayne) and Andrea's "Geek Girl" Stereotype Bingo. Update: Via Zuzu at Feministe, the blog diagram wasn't Lauren's, it was from the NY Times, and Chris Clarke did a more specific-to-liberal-bloggers take on it.

• Lastly, I really enjoyed Joy Nash's Fat Rant on YouTube, and hope you do as well:

Thanks for passing this along, Barry!

Twenty Thousand

This morning my Hyundai Sonata passed 20,000 miles, just as I was approaching the office. I never would have imagined that the two people on whom I relied the most for basic car information (my dad, who bought me the car three years ago, and Leah, who drove Hyundais for years and worked in the auto insurance industry for a long time) would both be gone before 20,000.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Evanier has a habit, when he's too swamped to blog, of putting up a can of Campbell's Soup to indicate "slow to no blogging ahead." I like that habit, but Campbell's tends to have too much salt for me. So I'm using this can instead. Lots of work catch-up today. Don't even know if I'll be posting at ComicMix, aside from my weekly column which has just gone up. (By the way, comments have just gone up there too, so y'all don't need to come over here to comment any more. You can still do so if you want to, of course.)

Talk Radio

I've decided to adopt one of the sheloshim practices and not listen to music until the end of the month, which makes my half-hour drive to and from work really boring (at least the parts where I don't talk to Robin on the bluetooth). I tried Air America this morning but the signal kept fading and, I'm sorry, their morning DJs are terribly unprofessional and more tedious than not having the radio on at all. Any suggestions from NYC and Westchester County area folks on listenable talk radio around the 8 AM time period? Or should I just rev up the Firesign CDs instead?

Ray-Ray and the Impersistence of Memory

For me, one of the more meaningful, gratifying and healing shiva visits paid to my brother's house last week was by my childhood friend Rachael and her husband Mike. Rachael was the first girl my age whom I met when we moved to New Jersey. She and her family the Peterpauls lived next door, having moved there a few weeks before us, so we were all new to the neighborhood together. Ray-Ray, as many of us called her tentatively when we were far enough away not to get our heads bitten off, was the oldest of seven siblings in that raucous household. I adored her, and was intensely jealous of her beauty and poise and ability to get things done.

And to an extent I still am. Rachael (and to this day I insist that's the only "proper" way to spell the name) is now a published author and environmental activist who uses her non-profit organization to involve local kids in an African Community Assistance program, working to organize borehole drilling and different types of water pump installs into schools that have no running water. She also heads up a youth action group and the Earth Murals project, "dedicated to involving children in all fifty states (and other countries) in the creation of murals that focus on recycling and giving back to the earth." She was always great with us kids even when she was one of us, organizing us into groups to travel hither and yon throughout the neighborhood, something else I probably took from her.

But something I don't have any more is her memory. She started reminiscing about the old days in Roselle, saying "Do you remember when we used to go to the school to see the plays and then come home and act them out?" And I admitted I didn't. I believed her that we did all the stuff she remembers us doing, of course, but I can no longer access those memories myself. This has been an increasing source of frustration in recent years, which really hit home hard during the period which is after all dedicated to healing via remembering the loved one.

What I have more than anything else is vague visual impressions. When Rachael prompted, "Do you remember playing kickball in your back yard?" I sorta did, but what I actually saw in my memory came out as "the pear tree was first base, the garden was second base, and the gap in the hedges in between our house and yours was third" because I could picture how things looked, but not necessarily what we were doing. I see myself as a girl standing on our back porch looking out at that yard, over and over again, but I'm not seeing anyone doing anything. My uncle observed that it's as though all my specific action-oriented memories are in a locked file cabinet and I've lost the key.

I don't know where or when that key got misplaced. Maybe when I went away to college, or moved out of Roselle for good, or got married, or changed jobs. I only know that I want, I need to find that key again. I think Dad's death triggered access to a couple of files, but not much more. I have no idea what will trigger the opening of the entire cabinet, but it has to happen. And one of the ways I'm determined to make it happen is by becoming close with Ray-Ray again, by once more holding onto the reality of this remarkable woman who was once a remarkable girl. And who sees depths in me that I've yet to plumb myself.

I've always trusted Rachael in the past. She's never steered me wrong -- that I remember. If someone like this believes in me, who am I not to believe in myself? I want to be around Rachael when I rediscover the memories of all the things I did which made me who I was, and who I am. Set a couple places at the table for us, Rachael, we're coming to visit real soon!

In Case You Wanted to Weep for Civilization

And I quote, "(Watch bleeding victim on floor, suspect at gunpoint: Video)" I'll bet the relatives are extremely grateful for CNN's attentiveness to every gruesome detail.

The 12th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans
and
Estrogen Month: Pop Culture Edition 2007 Wrap-Up
otherwise known as
Iron Chef Blogger Estrogen!

On July 17, 2006 a delightful blogging tradition took root in the fertile online soil of feminist pop-culture communities everywhere, as Chairwoman Lisa "Ragnall" Fortuner created the concept of a Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans, which "periodically collects posts from the hazy side-reality where feminist social consciousness meets the outer limits of the imagination. This is to draw attention to lesser known bloggers, to bring individuals of like-minded (or at least, understanding) interests together, and to foster the growth of feminist fan communities." With the Chairwoman standing by, please allow me to introduce a veritable pantheon of virtual virtuosos. Ladies and gentlemen, your Iron Bloggers!

First up is QueerTransGeek Rob Drake, who hails from the UK where blogger cuisine has something of a mixed reputation, but as someone married to an Englishman named Rob your narrator assures you that unfair rep just isn't deserved! Rob's offering is a leftover from Blog Against Sexism Day earlier in the month, but holds up just fine for weeks on end! It's an analysis of female characters in the Sci Fi series The Dresden Files. The judges feel his dish is spot-on, as he whips up a substantive comparison between the TV show and historically weak-on-feminism genres such as hard-boiled detective fiction, and finds the 21st century supernatural 'tec show still lacking! No capable women who aren't defined primarily by their relationship to men? Check! Villainous "queer women who use their sexuality to manipulate men into complying with their schemes"? Double check to the gut! This show doesn't go down well at all to the feminist palate, but we can certainly identify with Rob's frustration and award major points for perception!

Sticking with the TV motif (and who isn't?), our next contestant calls herself tlönista (n. one who invents possible worlds) and checks in as a "godless feminist nerd, ranting and scribbling in the wilds of Toronto the Good, subsists on science fiction, comics, baked goods, ink, and tea." Baked goods and tea, that'll pique the judges' interest right there! The fair tlönista (who gets sun in Toronto this time of year?) shoots down conspiracy theories about Life after Starbuck and segues into a smooth and creamy examination of gender politics via conflicting quotes from Battlestar Galactica bigwig Ron Moore and his wife. Looks like their differences may heat up soon; ready the bamboo steamer!

Another BSG post, submitted via the mysterious Jess, comes to us from John Patrick writing about Feminism in Space over at Bitch Ph.D.'s pad. Apparently the show's plots and turns have slotted in nicely with John's "own personal big fat liberal agenda" this season, and it's always fun to watch science fiction that reflects and supports one's own worldview. "His people are all white on the right side!" was as influential to your narrator's home-baked childhood as "You've got to be carefully taught," after all. Speaking of which, Patrick runs down memorable female characters on SF television from Star Trek onward, wondering if we've come a long way or merely made a circular run in twelve parsecs. I still think Nichelle Nichols is pretty right-on, but then I'm stuck in time, somewhere in the 24th and a half century, and I'm sure those muffins must be done and ready for frosting by now!

Rounding out the viewing course is S.A. Bonasi of Bonasi's Realm, a 20-year old college student who describes herself as "binormal unit vector sexual, which means I'm attracted to math geeks." What's not to love there? S.A. takes a peek at Action and Relationships in Day Break, an interesting-sounding program starring the easy-on-the-eyes Taye Diggs which S.A. "highly recommend[s] to feminists who like relationships, action, or both, regardless of their gender." This satisfying repast is available for repeated viewing at abc.com, at least once one gets past their "new and improved" viewer (dang it all, that sucker better work, I'm an episode behind in Ugly Betty!).

Now we're served a real challenge. The judges absolutely cannot characterize this one, a screed about male jerks by SengAun Ong at Tipskey. Their marks indicate that they found saying "women's awareness about jerks must be escalated" to be rather obvious and unhelpful; furthermore, as we all know, beefs about being jerky are so tough and salty as to be near inedible. One is left wondering what any of this has to do with feminist sf and fantasy.

Thank goodness for the book course, which has produced strong contenders in past Iron Blogger battles and rises to the occasion here as well. First up we have Jen the Tacit Hydra at Venturesome, who reviews Tricia Sullivan's novel Maul, a "post-feminist SF novel with gunslinging girls charging through a mall and a future in which a plague has killed off most of the men" with lots of concepts (both in her review and the book) that your narrator isn't afraid to admit rose above her head like a runaway soufflé and stayed there! The tantalizing aroma of those ideas hangs there still, beckoning and taunting us to greater plateaus that I fear some of us will never quite reach. Alas, the confection in question wound up falling flat for Jen, who feels it didn't follow through on its promise. Isn't it the truth, sometimes no matter how closely you follow the recipe the ingredients just don't mix right. Sounds too rich for my blood to begin with!

More to my speed is the book course from Reb at Adventures in Lame, who gives us a Fast and Fangirly glimpse at a novel she recently reread after not having perused it since young adulthood. Hang on, you mean there are folks who have time to reread books while your narrator has a shelf full of paperbacks whose covers have never been cracked? Not that I'm bitter, or tangy. Reb extols the many virtues of young-adult writer Bruce Coville, an author I've never had the pleasure of reading but who turned out to be a major influence on Reb, who presents a recommended reading list of some of his work. She concludes, "I don’t think I can think of a single other male author –- and very few female ones, for that matter -– who so consistently writes so many dynamic girls." Better for your young readers than an Easy-Bake Oven! Which, of course, would just singe the books anyway, making them harder to read.

Wrapping up the book section of our menu is a Tuesday T&B entry from Maddie at Twisty Faster's blog, I Blame The Patriarchy. This one starts off bafflingly crunchy, as I had to cheat and scroll down to the end to figure out that "T&B" stands for "Truth and Beauty," and dessert before the appetizer is just wrong in most haute cuisine cultures. The confusion continues as this post is apparently spun off from another having to do with Shulamith Firestone's Dialectic of Sex, a book which doubtless contains over 200% of the minimum daily requirement of More Than I Need To Know and therefore one I shall probably never even skim. But to the entrée at hand: it seems many of Twisty's fans and friends are attempting to collate a definitive feminist sf reading list, which appears about as Sisyphusean as trying to serve up a definition of feminism itself, but there you are. I really got frightened and frustrated at the texture of Maddie's ten-dollar words like "approbative" and "enpornulated," but I'll admit I found the second quite tasty although a little slimy on the tongue. I believe she's trying to convey the concept of "chacon a son gout," but that may not sway the judges who still have to arrive at a consensus! Not sure if they're going to appreciate the "heck yes I'm going blame people for not being ahead of their time" sauce, which may be dolloped on a bit thick rather than being portioned out around the edges, but that's not my call to make, for which you can bet I'm grateful!

If you found that rough going, our final course is downright metallic, as Jeremy Adam Smith at Other Magazine's blog whips up The Essentialist Android, which he's hoping will learn the fine art of empathy for future android-human relations. Ah, but can it cook? Jeremy doesn't say, but he does detail studies conducted by Billy Lee, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, designed to help "understand what conditions cultivated empathy, trust, and intimacy." No mention of haggis anywhere, which is obviously a plus for Dr. Lee, but his conclusion? "Women appear to be the gatekeepers of intimacy... If androids are to substitute for the intimacy function of humans, the android body must be equipped with nurturing features associated with the female form." Oh, momma! Looks like our Jetsonian future may be very Rosie indeed unless half the population reconnects their nurture-gene! Especially those Scotsmen. I've heard cooking helps.

Thanks to all our expert chefs for cooking up lots of food for thought! As your after-dinner cocktail, here's a handy conversion table of my and Laura's Estrogen Month: Pop Culture Edition posts from last month:

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
Day 8	Day 9	Day 10	Day 11	Day 12	Day 13
Day 14	Day 15	Day 16	Day 17	Day 18	Day 19	Day 20
Day 21	Day 22	Day 23	Day 24*	Day 25*	Update*

Due to my Dad's death, I was unable to finish out the month as originally planned and Laura graciously stepped in to do the last three (asterisked) posts. But I did want to briefly mention a few other links I read and liked in the past week: Cranky Girl at Life on Queen Street has begun what promises to be an interesting series about her relationship to comics; Amy at Arrogant Self-Reliance has a terrific analysis of good girl and bad girl comic characters; and, in keeping with our Iron Blogger theme, sbg at the Hathor Legacy examines the dynamics of Take Home Chef and finds the same problems with it that I do. (My thanks to her blog-mate Revena for spreading the word about the rescheduling of this Carnival.) I also wanted to pass on notes from a couple of comic-book Lisas: Lisa at Sequentially Speaking calls our attention to some nifty Sequential Tart t-shirts in real-woman sizes; and Lisa Jonte at Women's Work invites us to be a part of GirlAMatic's fourth anniversary celebration, going on through April 6th. Oh, and my personal culture wouldn't be complete without Melissa McEwen, who's just informed me that her group blog Shakespeare's Sister has now morphed into Shakesville; adjust those bookmarks and blogrolls!

Speaking of which, I've been promising that at least one blogger's cuisine would reign supreme in my sidebar blogroll, so please welcome Raina Telgemeier and Marion Vitus, who not only have the exquisite taste to be respectively married to long-time Friends of Lulu (and friends of mine) Dave Roman and John Green, but who are incredible talents in their own right. Welcome, ladies! I'll continue to read a number of pop-culture bloggers I found during Estrogen Month, and most of the ones not on my sidebar can be found on my Bloglines subscription list in the "Where the Women Bloggers Are" sections. Thanks for tuning in, everyone! Good night and a full stomach to you all!

Day of Opening

We got up from shiva this morning, helped Jay start getting ready for Passover, and took off for home around 10 AM or so. We finally arrived sometime around 1 PM. We had forgotten that today was opening day for the Yankees. Dad would have known. He would have reminded me to stay left over the George Washington Bridge and take the Henry Hudson Parkway back up to the Bronx instead of going for the Deegan like I usually do (and naturally all the southbound traffic pushed into the northbound lane so I couldn't exit until I got right to the turnoff). He might even have suggested I buy a t-shirt or two from the vendors walking through the bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95 coming off the Bridge. (I didn't.) I heard it all in my head. I watched a few minutes of the game just to see if I could; the Yankees were winning, then losing. Bobby Murcer was being interviewed. He's bald, presumably from chemotherapy treatments. Other people suffer, other people smile. Life is going on all around me. I must wade back into it.

Later today I will be posting and hosting the 12th Carnival of Feminist SF and Fantasy Fans. Tomorrow I'm going to tell you all about Ray-Ray, and I'll be back in the ComicMix. Wednesday I lock myself in my office at work and catch up on a week and a half's worth of spam as well as monthly billing. Saturday I return to Jay's house to take him and Mom to the airport for their short trip back to Vegas to close up the "winter home" before returning back east. Somewhere in all that I will start to breathe normally again, despite the huge metaphorical hole in my heart.

No Foolin'

White Rabbits, everyone. April has got to be better than March for me. Today is the last day of sitting shiva for Dad, although his absence will be felt for the rest of my life. But signs of continuance and future happiness are everywhere. Yesterday afternoon in my brother's back yard I counted ten deer, two geese and a number of crows and other smaller birds. How remarkable, to walk out on his back deck (the first time I'd left the confines of the house) and just stare at the deer, staring back at me. I think a couple of them were fawns, lighter in color and a bit smaller, but since the last time I saw deer in person was probably years ago at a zoo it was hard to tell.

And of course today is April Fool's Day, with sites like Google already getting a jump on things. Naturally the Other Place For Which I Blog has its plans, in which I suppose it's a good thing that I'm unable to fully participate, as I'm not really very good at this and somewhat in awe of those who can pull it off, such as the following:

• BrownBetty -- Girl Wonder redesign

• Karen Healey - Awoken By My Prince

• Laura Gjovaag - Ripples Through Time

And that's only as of 7 AM or so. I'm not sure how often I'll be online today, as we're expecting a lot of relatives for the last shiva day, but I may come back here and periodically update what other April Foolish posts I've read.

It's also the day we celebrate as Amy's birthday. She's finally reached double digits. I'm glad I'll finally see her (and Datsa) again tomorrow. Pets are very good at helping one heal. And it's opening day for baseball. Even though there's no crying in baseball, at this point I don't know the next time I'll be able to watch a Yankees game, as they will all remind me of Dad.