Late last night, barely able to keep my eyes open because of exhaustion, I stayed awake in order to finish a story that capitvated me. Edinburgh by Alexander Chee.

Admittedly, I first looked this book up because I discovered the author’s blog after he visited mine. But I read the reviews and decided that it would be worth a try. I also made up my mind that I wouldn’t say anything further about it if I wasn’t enamored… Very rarely do I have the opportunity to actually tell the creator what I think of his or her work, and I don’t like to offer unsolicited criticism if I have nothing good to say. I can be brutally honest when giving my opinion of a book, movie, or music.

Obviously though, I’m mentioning it here, meaning it was wonderful.

Chee’s writing style is lyrical and poetic, and drew me in completely by the end of the first page. He takes a number of difficult topics (pedophilia & molestation, homosexuality, and bits of ethnic culture clash) and somehow weaves a beautiful story around it. It is a love story, though the beauty of that doesn’t come into focus until nearly the end. It is a coming of age story, but it manages to escape most of the clichés that usually trap tales of pubescent angst. It is a story about a gay man, but I would not dare place this in the same category as books that are usually promoted as “gay fiction”. Edinburgh is a tale of humanity and overcoming, even as many of the characters suffer through horrific tragedies.

In short, it is a magnificent work of art.

Apparently, Bill Clinton was the only politician in Arkansas with any sort of intellect.

The below quote came from an Arkansas House member in the course of defending his vote *against* a resolution to affirm the separation of church and state, as printed in a column in The Benton Courier (and pointed out by Americans Are Dumb):

“I don’t see that there is an existing problem. It’s clear that our founding fathers, that they wanted Christian beliefs,” said Rep. Michael Lamoureaux, R-Russellville. “The separation of church and state is not in our Constitution.”

What the hell are they teaching people down there? Apparently, in Arkansas, the First Amendment (”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”) need not apply.

Rep. Buddy Blair, a fellow Arkansas House member who actually displays signs of intelligence, is aghast.

“I think there are a lot of repercussions to this. I think the rest of the country will be shocked. It’s unbelievable to me. They have just voted against the U.S. Constitution and the constitution of the state of Arkansas,” Blair said.

Though Blair and the other 38 members who supported this resolution may have a grasp on reality, the 44 members who voted against it, thus defeating it, need to go back to school and learn the basics of the U.S. Constitution.

Listen people, I don’t care what religion you are, if you don’t think separation of church and state is a good thing, you haven’t been paying attention. We’re sliding head first down a slippery slope here, and it makes me nervous.

Thanks to Chelle for posting the phrase “sticky white panties” in my comments - it had the desired effect. Not only have I had several hits from that phrase, I’m number one on Google for that search!

Though I haven’t had any one else quite as focused as to specify only men who do so, “fuck fruit” is quickly becoming one of the most popular search phrases that leads here.

The lesson here? If you want more traffic to your blog, go now and post “sticky white panties” and “fuck fruit” somewhere in your blog, and watch the hit counter soar!

Yesterday was a very strange day. It began with a large dose of panic (for reasons I shall not go into), followed by an immense feeling of relief when I found that things weren’t as bad as my imagination had cooked them up to be, and then the day ended on a little bit of a high note. I’m trying to focus on the high note part as much as possible to retain my what’s left of my sanity. (And there ain’t much of that left to go around.)
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The good news that helped push the high note at the end of the day: My boyfriend’s temp job has been extended again. We may be able to stave off complete poverty for one more week.
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New music from old loves has been peppering the soundtrack to my life recently. Tuesday saw the release of Tori Amos‘ The Beekeeper and earlier this week I found myself contemplating the leaked Nine Inch Nails track “The Hand the Feeds”.

Tori has most certainly mellowed with age; The Beekeeper is not nearly as powerful and angry as Little Earthquakes was, though really nothing she’s released since has been. That being said though, I find that I dig this album quite a bit, which only confirms my suspicions that I too have mellowed with age. Not such a horrible thing I suppose, but something I never really thought would happen. The song with Damien Rice, “The Power of Orange Knickers”, has a lovely sound to it - their voices don’t really blend as much as complement each other… reminiscent of when Trent guested on “Past The Mission” all those years ago. I need to find more music from Damien Rice.

Trent Reznor seems nearly as angry as ever, in direct contrast to the mellowed Tori. I only have the one song to judge by, but it’s a scorching little ditty. “Will you bite the hand that feeds, will you chew until it bleeds, can you get up off your knees?” Yep, Trent’s still got a few issues to deal with, lucky for us. Even if I have mellowed a little myself, I still find I like a good song full of bitterness and anger. I’m slowly getting excited for the release of With Teeth.
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My father and I were discussing the fact that I have no desire to have children (which neither of my parents take issue with), and he told me that Darwin had an explanation for that. Apparently, I’m helping to clean up the gene pool by refusing to further the line of lunatics that fill up my family tree.
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Waiting for the bus yesterday with inadequate facial protection from the icy wind that chilled me to the bone left me with a bitching case of windburn. My face feels (and looks) like I spent a day at the beach with no sunscreen. This is not a mistake I’ll make again.

Having just finished a breakfast with bacon, I can almost identify:

BaconWhores began in the Sierra Nevada mountains on a cold winter day in 1998. The founders, exhausted after a long day of skiing, wanted a meal of bacon, but were unwilling to prepare it themselves.

“If only there were people who would come and cook it for us,” they mused. “Bacon whores.”

I cannot quite decide if this is the most brilliant entry into a niche market I’ve ever seen, or the most inane business idea ever. In either case, BaconWhores made me laugh.

(found at Jockohomo)

I would have loved to have been hired to write A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand Sex Industry. Boing Boing quotes a beautiful section on not sharing sex toys which is indeed the best part of it all. The second best:

Measures that can be undertaken to eliminate occupational overuse [like carpal tunnel from hand jobs?] are:
• The employer carrying out regular health and safety audits of the workplace.
• Ensuring that all beds and other workstations support the back and allow for a variety of services to be performed without strain or discomfort. Where possible, beds, massage tables, etc. should be adjustable, allowing for a variety of employees to use them safely and without strain.
• Comprehensive training in the safe use of all equipment, particularly that used in B&D and S&M fantasy work, as well as training in correct massage techniques, should be provided to workers who use these techniques.

A few good items in the Glossary of Terms too:

B&D stands for bondage and discipline.
The insertive partner during sex places their penis, other body part or a sex toy into the mouth, vagina, neo-vagina or anus of the other person.
Neo-vagina is the name used for a constructed vagina, which replaces the male genitalia, removed during a surgical process undertaken by some male to female transgender people.
The receptive partner during sex has their mouth, vagina, neo-vagina or anus entered by the other partner using their penis, other body part or a sex toy.
S&M stands for sadism and masochism.
Taping, tucking or strapping refers to the practice of securing the male genitals up between the legs using surgical tape or tight undergarments.

I now consider my dream job to be writing sex workers’ health and safety manuals. I don’t think I could be an actual sex worker in New Zealand though, as they have ban against smoking indoors in the workplace, and I sure would hate to have to get up and run out the door for that necessary post-coital smoke.

(I can’t believe I’m up still, at nearly 4 AM reading a sex workers health manual. The joy of the Internet.)

I’m actually a technology geek. I love gadgets, I can’t even imagine my life without the Internet, video games are what keep my boyfriend busy most of the time (and so, out of my hair) and I’ve publicly stated several times that I would rather go without food than my broadband connection. Anyone who knows me understands the gravity of such a statement, bearing in mind my devotion to food. But if I had a time machine, I swear I’d go back in time and stop cell phones from being invented. I can’t stand those damn things.

Ok, to be fair, it’s not really cell phones I hate, it’s people using cell phones that I loathe so fervently. It just seems that cell phones have made it much more socially acceptable to be rude, inconsiderate, and annoying. I have had one of these spawn-o-satan a couple of times in my life, and I was probably just as guilty as anyone else at times. But I can happily say that I do not own one now, and I have not had one in my possession for over 2 years. (The last one I had was forced on me by my employer at the time, so I haven’t had one by choice in more than 5 years.)

Yes, I know that cell phones can be used for good - I purchased my first one because I was working a long way from home and traveling to and from work in a car that seemed to actually enjoy breaking down at 11 PM on the most desolate stretch of the highway. Having a cell phone then wasn’t just handy; it was necessary. But I can’t think of any reason other than “in case of emergency” that necessitates me owning one now, and I don’t really need one even for emergencies. We all got along ok for many years without them, though I realize that seems hard to believe these days.

Just a few of the reasons I hate these infernal toys:

(more…)

Overheard from a young man walking by earlier this evening:

“My fiancée called me last night screaming ’cause her mom showed up on her doorstep threatening to kick her ass. How cool is that? Heh. Heh.”

I’m a fortune teller; I see a happy and fulfilling marriage in his future.

Just like everyone else, the weirdos show up in the logs. This is something I always find amusing in other blogs, so I’ll share mine too.

So far, the only search which led to my blog that has actually made me think a little bit was men that fuck fruit. Much like when I first learned of furries, this leaves me scratching my head a bit. Bless the Internet… without it I would never have known these fetishes existed.

Mind you, from what I see in the search results, our fetishist was out of luck in his quest. Better luck next time.

The fear-mongering that goes on in local news broadcasting is the top reason I don’t watch local news EVER. For that matter I watch very little television news at all, save maybe the Daily Show, which of course is fake news. But the local newscasters stoop to the most unbelievable paranoia inducing crap “reporting”; I can only figure that it’s a desperate cry for ratings. If you scare them enough, they will come.

In scanning through a couple of blogs from folks up here in my area, I learned that one of our local stations recently ran a piece about how blogging can lead pedophiles right to your door. Kids are revealing too much online the news report says, with the expert Brendan Sheehan (a Cuyahoga County Prosecutor who specializes in Internet crime) spouting off that because the pedophiles will know these kids innermost secrets, they can apparently instantly scam their way right into your teenage girl’s heart.

First - where is this coming from? A case where this has happened? Um, no. This is all theoretical. My guess is that this newscast mostly just gave a few pedophiles some ideas on ways to get their jollies more than anything else. And broadcasting random pictures of cute girls from the Xanga site, along with their profile names, and even showing a chat session with a young girl displaying her IM name to whoever is watching was just brilliant folks. Brilliant! Let’s help those pedophiles find the site and start working their way through - here’s some cute girls to start with… go for it!

Second - What about teaching your kids some common sense? Never is it mentioned in this newscast that it might be good idea to talk to your children about blogging, about the possible consequences of sharing too much info with the world, or about using some common sense when approaching any interaction with people on the Internet. It all comes back to parenting people. If the newscast had been about teaching your kids Internet safety, I wouldn’t have said a word. But the closest they came to that was to tell kids to use a pencil and paper to journal (!!), keep the computer in a main room, and tell your kids never to chat with strangers (like the random guy who tells you he’s doing a news story and wants to ask you some questions about blogging… he’s just creepy!).

The last two bits of advice I don’t necessarily disagree with, but the pencil and paper thing was just ridiculous. How about you talk to your kids about making their journals private or “friends only”? (Something that can easily be done with most of the major blogging packages, as far as I know.) How about suggesting that they keep a journal that isn’t on a webpage but is simply a file somewhere on their computer? There are several programs out there that can do this, or hell, just use a Word doc.

And they missed out on the easiest way to teach your kids safety in blogging: If your kid is blogging and has made it easy enough for someone to find them by posting enough personal info, you should be able to find that blog yourself. Find it, read a little bit, then tell your kid you did this. I’m willing to bet they’ll think a little more about what they’re posting, or stop posting altogether knowing that Mom or Dad is reading every word. Or at least they’ll figure out a way to hide it better, which really, is the whole point.