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Jezebel's Journal
Why, yes, it IS all about me
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... and of my cousin Morris Kight:

[info]wordweaverlynn asks what are you going to do to celebrate Harvey Milk's birthday?

Me, I'm just going to make a few things explicit:

I consider myself queer. But I acknowledge that, as queer goes, I'm just swimming in the privilege of plausible deniability, at least at this point in my life. I am, after all, a woman in a long-term relationship with a man. And I look like somebody's grandma. If people remark at all on my affectional life, it's generally to puzzle over the fact that I'm paired up with someone who's polyamorous, and ask me how that works.

But I've spent my life since adolescence surfing the Kinsey scale; I've been known to describe my basic orientation as "mutable." I seem to be drawn to individuals, not types or genders; I've had loving long-term sexual relationships with women and loving long-term sexual relationships with men. Also hot, sweaty short-term relationships, not to mention more crushes than I can even remember.

I've never tried to hide these facts, not since coming out to my own mom in my 20s and receiving the best imaginable response ("Oh, when are we going to get to meet her?"). At some periods of my life, I've gone out of my way to identify publicly and politically with the queer community. I spent one memorable election season as the public face and voice of the campaign against one of Oregon's infamous anti-gay ballot measures - in the relatively conservative, some would say redneck community where I live.

But it's easy for people, even people who know me failry well, not to know these things about me. It's not that I intentionally conceal it - I'm a notorious blurter, and have no real sense of privacy - it's just that the subject doesn't often come up.

So this is me, bringing it up. When I speak for gay marriage, or against hate crimes, it's not just as a sympathetic ally. THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. They always have been. They always will be.

[info]joedecker reminds us that, as they waited 30 years ago for a verdict in Milk's murder, Californians are now waiting to find out whether their Supreme Court will recognize them next week as full citizens. They were disappointed before; they may be disappointed again.

What they, what *we* won't do is shut up, or go away, or give up. Civil rights movements take generations; this one is rolling along pretty well by those standards. I plan to stick around to watch it succeed.

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Ingredients:
  • Two 25-lb. bags organic garden soil
  • Numerous bath towels and hand towels (courtesy of Goodwill, in a $12 "good for rags" bag)
  • Assorted lengths of PVC pipe
  • Assorted lengths of rope
  • Two rolls of duct tape*
  • A couple of Goodwill blankets + more rope to wrap up the corpse

How I spent my afternoon )
* The adhesive that holds the universe together

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I feel ...: accomplished

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[info]phinnia! May your day be happy and the year ahead even better!
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[info]deyo! Here's hoping it's full of love and fun. And puppies.
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... to [info]solcita. May the year be filled with music (well, that's an easy one!) and joy.
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... [info]lovelyangel! May the year ahead be filled with good times (and great images!)
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... to [info]hanneblank and [info]hobbitblue!
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[info]loracs!

May you and your loved ones get the breaks you so richly deserve, and may the year ahead be much, much better to you all.
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While visiting the local Staples store on Saturday, I found this 16GB USB memory stick on sale for $29.95. With a nifty little retractable connector.

No sale pricing for this model on the Staples Web site, but it might be worth checking your local staples if you're as dependant on these things as I am. Four times the capacity of the last one I bought, at half the price...

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[info]lysana! May the day be terrific, and the year ahead filled with goodness.
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[info]stonebender! Here's wishing a better year for you and yours...
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Happy ones, I hope they've been, for [info]shiroken and [info]xiphias!
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... to [info]sideshowbennie! May it be a wonderful one, filled with hijinks and love!
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... to Oregon! Celebrating its 150th birthday on Valentine's Day ... and in celebration, the Oregon State University Archives has become the first university collection to join the Flickr Commons, a wonderful collection of publicly owned photographs from museums and archives all over the world.

(They threw a little party over in the Archives office yesterday, and I'd meant to drop by, but missed out because I stayed home sick. Still, I'm tickled. One more geeky reason to love the open-source, share-the-information philosophy that prevades the institution where I work...)

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... to [info]essaying, almost-a-neighbor and all-'round woman of substance. May the day be wonderful, and the year ahead full of the *good* sorts of adventures!
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I woke up this morning with the chorus to "Wichita Lineman" (a song I find banal at best) running through my brain. Took me most of the morning to shake it.

Only to find it replaced by "What I Did For Love" from A Chorus Line.

Which, in context, ain't a bad showtune, but as an earworm? Keeeeee-ripes.

"...wish me luck, the same tooooo yooooooooooooou..."

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I feel ...: crazed

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... [info]shelleybear! May the next year be better than the last, and filled with joys small and large.
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Keep [info]s00j in your thoughts this morning ...
... as she goes in for surgery to examine what her doctors think is a benign ovarian cyst - surgery we helped pay for, yay.

The doctor bills will continue to pile up. You can still help by buying her music, which is very damned good music you should probably have in your collection anyway. (-:

If you're more of the reading than listening persuasion, there's still time to order a very special, limited-time anthology featuring writing and art by the likes of Ari Berk, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Seanan McGuire, Mia ([info]copperwise) Nutick, Catherynne M. Valente, Terri Windling - and [info]s00j herself.

But you know, if money's tight, you can still send good thoughts ...

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... to [info]unbeliever64 and [info]futabachan!
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... to [info]prophet_marcus. I hope it's a great day, old friend, however you celebrate it.
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... to [info]epi_lj (hope you're feeling better) and [info]pyrzqxgl! Yay for Friday birthdays - you can keep celebrating all weeekend long!
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[info]kayre - I hope it's a wonderful one!

And a belated happy birthday to Gypsy, [info]rowanf - I hope it was as lovely as you are!
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... to a new local LJ friend, [info]kindredsgirl! I hope it's a wonderful one, and that I get a chance to hear your band soon!
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[info]nex0s. I hope your day is wonderful, and I know the year ahead will be filled with adventures. (-:
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[info]pecunium! One of the LJ pleasures of 2008 has been reading your trenchant observations of everything from world politics to photography. May the coming year be filled with joy.
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[info]pagawne! May the day be wonderful, and the year ahead even better.
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... to [info]okoshun and [info]spiritmoving! Wishing you more light, and a wonderful year.
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Tonight's meal, inspired by [info]lcohen and a sudden craving for red meat (I get this way in the winter): Thin slices of medium-rare London broil (top round), marinated overnight in lime juice, ground chipotle pepper, garlic and honey and then broiled to perfection and served with a reduction of the marinade and a little horseradish, plus Crash Hot Potatoes. Which are without a doubt my favorite new thing to do with potatoes.

To quote The Internet: NOMNOMNOM

I should probably have had some other vegetables in there somewhere, but having spent most of the past week working my way through a pot of vegetarian borscht, I have no regrets.

And I have enough leftover beef to keep me in protein till time for the Christmas Duck. (-:

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I slept until 11 this morning. I never sleep until 11, and I wasn't even up all that late last night - 1:30 or 2 or something like that.

I blame it on a combination of cold house, warm waterbed and two cats who took turns camping by my side all night, flooding the room with sleepyon particles. Having slept too much, I'm having a hard time waking up, although the coffee is working its magic as I type.

Still no further snow down here, and a day of heavy rain has melted what was left. It looks as if yesterday's storm focused on the northern part of the state; in Salem, a mere 20 minutes from here, they got eight inches, and the Portland area got slammed, and looks to keep getting slammed through Christmas week.

Current highway photos, for comparison )
The scary part, for those of us accustomed  to maybe 2-3 days of snow, max, in an entire winter, is that the forecast for Portland and the Gorge is showing more of the same straight through Christmas. I wonder how long it'll be before the public works departments exhaust their entire season's supply of road sand and chemical de-icers?

OK, time to get a hot shower and get dressed. I've set aside today for memorizing lines for Collected Stories. It's the mental equivalent of scutwork, but it's got to be done.
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to a trifecta of friends: [info]ladysprite, [info]kip_w and [info]brooksmoses. May the day be far better than the average Monday, and the year to come filled with good things.
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to [info]lsanderson and [info]unkaphaed! May the day be merry and the year ahead free of, say, interesting air travel adventures. (-:
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[info]danae! May your birthday make for a better-than-average Monday, and the year ahead be filled with good things.
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[info]laughingrat! I hope it's a great one, and that the year ahead is even better.
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[info]katster! Yay for Friday birthdays - I hope yours is great, and that the year ahead is even better.
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[info]dandelion_diva! I hope it's been a wonderful one, and that the year to come is even better.
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... to [info]randibeeman! May it be much better than the average Wednesday, and may the year ahead be full of good times.
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Could everyone (from president-elect Obama to the co-host of NPR's Morning Edition) please stop using "enormity" as though it meant really, really big (as in "the enormity of the task ahead," or "the enormity of this moment in history.")

At best, it's sloppy and archaic usage; at worst, it it's just plain wrong.

ETA I forgot that my OED access is due to the university's meta-subscription, and that many readers may not be able to follow that link. So here:
{dag}1. Divergence from a normal standard or type; abnormality, irregularity. Obs. or arch.
1538 STARKEY England I. iii. 84 The partys in proportyon not agreyng..leue much enormyte..in thys polytyke body. 1647 H. MORE Song of Soul II. iii. III. lxx, The strange absurd enormity Of staggering motions in the azure skie. 1865 MOZLEY Mirac. v. 95 Pure, boundless enormity, then is itself incredible.

{dag}b. concr. Something that is abnormal; an irregularity, extravagance, eccentricity. Obs.
1494 FABYAN VI. cxlix. 135 For his dulnesse and his other enormytes in hym exercysyd. Ibid. VII. ccxxiv. 251 That tyme clerkes..rode with gylte spurres, with vsynge of dyuerse other enormytees. 1577 T. VAUTROLLIER Luther on Ep. Gal. 26 And yet we can not remedie this enormitie. 1687 Death's Vis. ix. (1713) 41 note 4 The Irregularities and Enormities that appear in the Mundane System. 1710 ADDISON Tatler No. 250 {page}1 Enormities in Dress and Behaviour. 1781 J. MOORE View Soc. It. (1790) I. xxxix. 432 Keep the citizens from reflecting on..the enormities of the new form of government.

2. Deviation from moral or legal rectitude. In later use influenced by ENORMOUS 3: Extreme or monstrous wickedness.
1563 Homilies II. Repentance II. (1859) 537 Our natural uncleanliness and the enormity of our sinful life. 1777 ROBERTSON Hist. Amer. (1778) II. v. 138 Stained an illustrious name by deeds of peculiar enormity and rigour. 1863 BRIGHT Sp. Amer. 30 June, The protest..against the enormity of the odious system. 1872 BLACK Adv. Phaeton xxvi. 358 Lecture her two boys on the enormity of telling a fib.

b. concr. A breach of law or morality; a transgression, crime; in later use, a gross and monstrous offence.
1475 CAXTON Jason 134b, Certes Madame sayd yet Jason for these enormytes know that I have left and repudied her. 1549 COVERDALE Erasm. Par. Hebr. 16 Beware that we fal not agayne into our olde enormyties. 1664 H. MORE Myst. Iniq. 10 Provided there be but found a colour for these gross enormities. 1713 ADDISON Guardian No. 116 {page}1 There are many little enormities in the world which our preachers would fain see removed. 1766 FORDYCE Serm. Yng. Wom. (1767) II. xiv. 267 A single look is construed into I know not what enormity. 1842 H. ROGERS Introd. Burke's Wks. (1842) I. 28 The enormities of Debi Sing, one of the worst agents of Indian tyranny. 1879 FROUDE Cæsar xi. 119 Other enormities Catiline had been guilty of.

{dag}3. Excess in magnitude; hugeness, vastness. Obs.; recent examples might perh. be found, but the use is now regarded as incorrect. (emphasis mine)
1792 Munchhausen's Trav. xxii. 93 A worm of proportionable enormity had bored a hole in the shell. 1802 HOWARD in Phil. Trans. XCII. 204 Notwithstanding the enormity of its bulk. 1830 Fraser's Mag. I. 752 Of the properties of the Peak of Teneriffe accounts are extant which describe its enormity. 1846 DE QUINCEY Syst. Heavens Wks. III. 183 The whitish gleam was the mask conferred by the enormity of their remotion. [Mod. ‘“You have no idea of the enormity of my business transactions”, said an eminent Stock Exchange speculator to a friend. He was perhaps nearer the truth than he intended’.]


Thank you.

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I feel ...: peevish

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The inestimable [info]elisem is having a sale. You should go look, being as how giftmas is coming and all that. (-:

(And if you're one of the locals who kept oohing over the necklaces I wore to the theater the past few weeks: Yeah, that's her.)

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to [info]aquaeri, one of the most thoughtful writers I know. I hope the day is/was* wonderful, and the year to come even better.

* I suffer from a sort of time zone dyslexia, and the International Dateline sends my brain into a stall, so I hope you see this before your birthday's over!
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[info]mamadeb! I hope it's a wonderful one, and that the year ahead is filled with good things.
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Happy birthday, [info]katgolightly! Brace yourself for a helluva good year...
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[info]eeyorein! I hope you're having a terrific birthday weekend, and that the year ahead is filled with good things (and smarter students!)
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[info]boxofdelights! I hope it's a wonderful one, and that the year to come brings many fine things.
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[info]darthgeek! I hope it's a lovely one!
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Winners of the 2008 Small World Photomicrography Competition, announced last week by Nikon.

The closer one looks, the more beautiful our universe appears.

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I feel ...: awed

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... in plain English, by financial analyst Henry Blodget, who actually took the time to read the 110-page document so we don't have to. Although you can if you want to.

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Jezebel
User: [info]kightp
Name: Jezebel
Website: My Website
May 2009
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