Down to Earth

Well, both NY baseball teams are losing, so it's a good evening to watch the crew of Artemis II splash down in the Pacific off the coast of San Diego. Everything was so lovely and precise! I'm both elated that we're exploring space again and disappointed that it took us this long. Without a made-up international rivalry things just don't get done, I guess. But we're certainly trending in the right direction there, and I hope the same for my personal and professional life...

Futility

Yet another day glorifying those who make war. How many does this make? I have sympathy for their circumstances, whether conscripted against their will by a draft or economic hardship, but I have no great love for the military. And I say this as the ex-wife of a sailor and daughter-in-law of another sailor. The more we pay tribute to the idea that war is always necessary (it's not) and dying is sacrifice (it's not), the more we will perpetuate this mentality. But I'm now living in a country that's so far up its own jingoism it can't even remember when American flags weren't festooned everywhere on non-holidays, when God Bless 'Murica wasn't forcibly inserted into the seventh inning stretch, when people could discuss the concept of a peace dividend, diplomacy, using our might to do some good in the world instead of killing. I choose to remember, on this day and Remembrance Day, all those who succumbed to the futility of war through bad luck and no fault of their own.

Silly Site o' the Day

Today seems to be a good day to celebrate heroes. All the brave souls in Ukraine, the Russian people protesting the actions of their leaders, everyone standing in solidarity and putting their money where their mouths are. I'm no hero but I cheer them on, even the fictional ones like those in Free Guy, tonight's Riggs Residence matinee (and highly recommended). And even pseudonymous ones like Chuck Tingle, who has purchased this website to pretty much stuck it to the loathsome transphone Governor Abbott (via The Mary Sue). I'm very grateful to live in a world with such heroes.

Silly Site o' the Day

Just when things seemed to be going swimmingly, my body betrayed me once again. This time it's my right knee, which is occasionally arthritic, but this pain is on a whole new level. I can't stand or walk without considerable pain. Nonetheless I managed to schlep in some supplies for our marathon office decorating spree, although I wasn't able to participate in the decorating itself. I hobbled back to the bus at the regular time, and really look forward to seeing the results when I hobble back in tomorrow morning. The shower's helped ease the muscles a bit, but this pain is still utterly mystifying. The DC TV superhero crossover of a series I read during my first marriage (I still remember Steve explaining to me who all these characters were) has taken my mind off some of the pain. Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds, a superhero in his own right whether you're talking DC (and really, nobody mentions Green Lantern for good reason) and Marvel (even I like Deadpool despite the crudity), has done it again. He's taken this ad, the subject of much controversy...



...and hired Monica Ruiz, the same actress, to do a sequel of sorts for his gin company:



Bloody brilliant. Can we do a take 2 on that Green Lantern thing with maybe Reynolds writing it this time?

Silly Site o' the Day

The eyesight seems to be back to normal; the plantar flareup will take a bit longer. But all in all a good start to the week, particularly considering I stayed up for all the Super Bowl ads. So did Nathan Robinson, who reacts to the MLK tone-deafness with this:



Same video/pictures, very different sounds. Via BoingBoing.

Sily Site o' the Day

So I read where a bunch of CEOs have disbanded their business advisory council the day before the current White House occupant disbanded them. Amazing. Meanwhile our company's CEO writes an inspiring anti-bigotry announcement which I passed along on my Facebook page. And soon to come, more resignations scheduled for the fall (via Arthur).

Found Everywhere

Everywhere, that is, except my past. What I wouldn't have given for this kind of "it gets better" video when I was a geeky teen!:



But of course the technology didn't exist then. How lucky are we that it does now! Also great to see all the supportive male feminists!

RIP Peter Bergman

Gone to the great love-in (he coined that term) in the next world, where I hope he's not on his own. I'm devastated and stunned. One knows it's always only a matter of time before one's heroes start to pass away, but neither is one ever prepared.  Peter was so vital right to the end, constantly producing new material.  I can't imagine a world without any new Firesign Theatre offerings to make (non)sense out of it.

Let The Katie Win!

Today I'm wearing my R2D2 necklace in support of Katie. You must read the whole article, it brought tears of joy to this geek girl's eyes. (By purest coincidence, I happen to have an R2-KT, which was made in memory of another Katie.)

As Six Becomes Seven

Throughout my life I've had several "friend crushes," periods of intense admiration for people with whom I was lucky enough to hang around and who had a tremendous influence on me. I got to see one of these people, Leah Adezio, enter the blog world briefly before her untimely depature from this plane of existence. Another, my college buddy Bill-Dale Marcinko, faded away before he could ever go online, and now he's gone as well.

And between Billy and Leah, there was Anna Deborah Ackner. Anni, her nom de plume during the days we hung out, was not only the maid of honour at my wedding to Steve, but the star staff writer for my zine INSIDE JOKE. I adored her writing, and still do. For whatever reason, after Steve and I divorced I lost touch with Anna, but the internet sometimes has a way of bringing things full circle. It was never to be with Bill-Dale, it was way too short with Leah, but I'm very thrilled to say that I have just learned that Anna Ackner now has a blog, The Incredible Doctor Postage, chronicling her current project: "over the course of the next year, I will write 1,000 letters. 1,000 personal, chatty, comfortable letters in longhand, with a signature. I will mail each one and I will see what happens."

Anna has been put into the Top Six on my sidebar, making it a Top Seven, of the writers I most admire who have had the greatest personal influence in my life and my decision to blog. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to writing influence, Anna is my alpha and omega, and I feel blessed that I can now read her regularly again.

Possibly Beautiful

This past week hasn’t been easy for me physically. I think my springtime allergies trigger some icky muscle woes. I seem to recall my hip bursitis flaring up this time last year, or maybe it was 2007. And all week, every few minutes or so my left hamstring feels as if it’s just about to cramp; I will go a long way towards avoiding a hamstring cramp, possibly one of the most painful spasms I can imagine (especially when it suddenly wakes you up in bed and you’re lying there screaming until the excruciating pain dissipates and it’s never soon enough). So I wind up favoring one side and throwing out even more of my body alignment, and generally feeling worse.

But in the virtual and tee-vee world, a few things have made me feel a lot better about myself and other people in general. The first is, of course, the Susan Boyle phenomenon, which I watched yesterday when I got back from work. I identify a great deal with Boyle, certainly physically and age-wise, and to see the stick-figure people undergo such a teachable moment about their own prejudices was very viscerally satisfying.

Then I turned on the TV and caught a few minutes of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, starring the big black and strikingly beautiful Jill Scott, followed by a rerun of Tuesday’s Colbert report with guest Susie Orbach talking about the futility and nonsense of body hatred. And I grinned even more.

Of course, yesterday was also a good day for taking stock of Wednesday’s events, with the very welcome mockery on both MSNBC and Comedy Central of the various FOX-sponsored “tea party” rallies filled with racists protesting tax hikes that will only affect the super-rich, not getting their own taxes will be cut, even when blogger Sinfonian pretty much spelled out for them in Pensacola. And the coverage of the President’s educational press conference on Tuesday gave me even more hope. After eight years of the government actively trying to dumb down its citizens, it’s great to see the desire to be smart becoming cool again. Despite the droning on of old media, I’m convinced that more citizens than ever are taking self-education into their own hands.

Indications are that people are less and less willing to be duped. When Elle magazine features “Stars sans fards” (literally “without makeup” but with the alternate meaning of “openness”) and Photoshop Disasters ranks consistently among the most popular websites, that tells me that I’m not the only one sick to death of style-over-substance appearance and thinking. Perhaps Susan Boyle’s gorgeous voice will presage the end of the plastic American Idol types with their digitally-tuned vocals?

While the signs may be there, we humans love to create patterns out of the randomness, just to make ourselves feel better. Much of the reaction to Boyle felt staged (the signature Cowell smirk, the audience “spontaneously” jumping to their feet) and, even if it didn’t, it appeared to me to be some sort of orgy of self-congratulations. You know, “PC” in its original meaning of “look how enlightened we are, yay us!” Still, while this series of coincidences may not presage a permanent backlash against the fake morality and topsy-turvy excesses of the last 30 years, the hippie and fat-acceptance activist in me can’t help but applaud even this subjective-looking trend.

For the Day

Springsteen does Seeger:



Bring 'em home.

Health Updates

Cliff Meth reports that Marie Severin is doing well, and Kevin Hayden reports that Randi Rhodes wasn't mugged after all but, like me, tripped and fell hard (and, unlike me, wasn't able to break her fall with her knees, thus preventing facial injuries). She's back on the air as I type this. She says she left a pub to smoke a cigarette, and the next thing she remembered was waking up face down.

Get Well Wishes for My Heroes

Heidi MacDonald reports that Marie Severin suffered a stroke last Thursday.

Diane Sweet reports that Randi Rhodes was mugged over the weekend.

Severin is one of my comic industry goddesses, and Rhodes is one of my political goddesses. May they both recover speedily.

Cheering Laura Up

I know clinical depression isn't something you can just wave away with a kind word or two, but I also know that Laura Gjovaag has been an invaluable friend to me for a long time, whether helping with Pen-Elayne template coding or comforting me after Leah's death or supporting me at ComicMix and just about everything in between, and I want to see her smiling again after her run of really rotten vehicular luck. I have often stated my opposition to bloggers asking readers to pay for their hobby, and that my exception to this stance is bloggers who aren't monetarily well off and don't normally ask but find themselves in need of a little temporary assistance with life expenses. Laura falls squarely into that category, plus she's my buddy. Please consider helping her over this little bump in her road. Thanks.