burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I glanced at the news item (and hey, at least this was actually posted on news, snerk), but didn't click on the cuts, so I didn't realize until I refreshed my flist/Inbox that it's a Russian company that SixApart has sold LiveJournal to.  That should be . . . interesting.

In other news, thelastgoodname pointed out to me that Netrillium's Terms of Service say, "All pornography, uploading or linking suggestive, explicit or obscene material is prohibited."  Clearly I didn't read their TOS thoroughly when I signed up.  Now I have to figure out if I wanna go elsewhere when my "lease" runs out in a couple months.  Sigh.

I had my 4th/final pilates-on-the-ball class yesterday.  Wasn't excessively challenging, which I was glad of.

Heh, my Free Will horoscope (which I almost never look at these days, despite its amusement factor) is about facing fear.

I had a good conversation which helped me deal with the irrational anxiety I have around one of the parts of my job.  (Amnesty is a good thing.)

Prof.B. wants me to check in every 3 days while I'm in Europe -- text message or e-mail or whatever -- to confirm that, y'know, I'm not dead.  He's more solicitous than my parents ;)

He also suggested wearing a hat and said something about my being fair-skinned.  What is up with that?

[Poll #1036062]

***

You know how there are all those stories of people on the 9/11 hijacked flights who called their loved ones to say goodbye?  I was idly thinking about this last night, and then telling my parents today when they came to retrieve their Harry Potter book this afternoon.  Of course my thoughts included instructions.  I expect this will viewed as morbid, but really it's just pragmatic.  (And okay, possibly the tag for this should be something like "the cat is on the roof.")

I forbid Pastor Bill doing my funeral (I'm not gonna bar anyone from attending, and if you wanna open the floor to anyone to say nice things about me, fine, but he is not officiating), but I'm not necessarily opposed to having it at UCN.  My mom thinks having it at UCN would be uncomfortable.  Conveniently, I'm attending a multiplicity of congregations.  CWM meets in an upstairs room rather than an actual sanctuary, but CAUMC has a sanctuary (and also a smaller chapel area adjacent).  CHPC also also has a sanctuary, but I feel more connected to the CWM/CAUMC world.  It would be kind of amusing to do it like Trelawney and Eric's wedding, with multiple officiants, but I think I want Tiffany to do it.

Just in case anyone is still misconstruing this: I have no desire to die, and in fact a strong desire to not die.

***

At lunch, Katie said, "My pickle is leaking."  It went downhill from there.

Sidebar: I said the verb rather than the noun is the problem.  Eric said "is" is the verb.  I said it's a gerund phrase.  He said "is" is still the verb.  I said okay fine, the gerund portion of the verb phrase is the problem.

wikipedia says:

In linguistics, "gerund" is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages:

• As applied to English, it refers to what might be called a verb's action noun, which is one of the uses of the -ing form.

Oh, and I was still meeting with Prof.B. when Katie left for the day, so she left me an adorable note on my desk.  How do I surround myself with such good people?

***

I knew Ari wouldn't mind if I didn't finish it until after Europe, but I felt guilty on behalf of the comm, so I finished my femslash_minis fic.

When I was first starting writing it, the structure helped me a lot since initially I had absolutely no idea for plot.  By the end, though, it became more hindrance than help, so the flow is somewhat uneven now.  However, I am not a good enough writer to go back and rewrite the whole thing, so there it is.  And I'll stop myself now before I end up listing all of the abundant flaws of the fic.

And yes I really did wanna come up with a better title -- like one that didn't begin with a number.

***

P.S. I know the source of my Subject line, but out of courtesy for my parents (and anyone else), please no Book 7 spoilers in comments.

***

Oh, man, bahletegate keeps getting worse and worse.  Some of this is making me want to go back to working on the entry I started back during the incest round, but I'm kind of glad I'll be away (though it's not like that will be stress-free -- I will have to be on the 'net at least some this weekend to finish my travel plans).

And on that note, I should go back to packing.  (Yeah, finishing that fic took way longer than I had expected.  Though having ideas was kind of cool.  Even though the ideas didn't always work with preceding structure plans.)  I need to be up at 5, so I may do that all-nighter thing and just sleep on the plane (which will of course fuck me up since I arrive at 8:30pm local time; sigh).

My family is the best.  My dad e-mailed me about my aunt (who just finished nursing school -- the graduation I skipped to go to my own Reunion):

She had taken the nursing certification exam on Tuesday and the computer had shut her down after the minumum number of questions.  I calculated that even if she had gotten all the questions wrong so far, there were still enough left that she had a mathematical chance to pass.  So the computer wouldn't have shut her down for failing.  Unless ... it had decided that even though she had a mathematical chance, the possibility wasn't worth taking seriously: like expecting the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to win the American League East championship.

When she called up, her first words were, "I'm not the Tampa Bay Devil Rays!"

***

I haven't been really paying attention to the details of the HP:7 midnight release parties 'cause it feels par for the course and it's not like I would go to any anyway (I'll acquire a loaner copy of the British edition, but I haven't been really into the series for some time now).

However, being reminded of the Harvard Square party it finally clicked that I'm actually gonna be in the Square that same night (birthday dinner with my family).

I'm consistently spoilerphobic (props to LJ, btw; I read Book 5 almost 6 months after it came out and was still unspoiled; didn't see the big Spoiler outside of a cut-tag until like 3 months after that) but I'm feeling oddly unfazed about Book 7 -- which is extra-ironic since most of LJ seems to be burying themselves under a rock to avoid spoilage (trolling people with spoilers is just mean, btw).  I wouldn't want to have been spoiled for the big Books 5 and 6 spoilers, and I'm sure when I read Book 7 I'll get to stuff which will make me think, "I'm so glad I wasn't spoiled for this," but I'm completely unfazed at the moment.  Which is not an invitation to spoil me as I still wish to go into stuff unspoiled, but it's kind of interesting, given my history and everything.

(I have been reading writeups of the OotP movie, but that's different since I have no interest in watching the movies.  Okay, I'm tempted to see the 5th movie 'cause I hear Luna is awesome, but I think really I can wait for the video.)

[I also do not currently have comment on StrikethroughGate is going boom again.  Though reading relevant information/discussion and parsing it should be on my to-do list.]

Obligatory link to the Emmy nomination list.  Provided by Amy, who said: "Hey, how many people from YOUR favorite bad WB show are nominated?

(If you're not sure, though, you could find out here. Hint: the answer is probably "less than four". Which, contrary to popular opinion, is not "a really big heart".)"

***

I was Google-Map-ing for MaryAlice and dude, they have the MBTA stops now (little blue and white M squares).  ♥

***

We watched "Mr. Frost" (tWW 7.04) today.  This seems appropriate to my mood today.

I was gonna listen to "After All" ("We will push on into that mystery / And it'll push right back / And there are worse things than that") but ended up listening to "Mercy of the Fallen" instead almost by accident, and yeah.

There’s the wind and the rain
and the mercy of the fallen
Who say they have no claim to know what’s right
There’s the weak and the strong
and the beds that have no answer
And that’s where I may rest my head tonight

[...]

There’s the weak and the strong
And the many stars that guide us
We have some of them inside us

I was talking tonight about how my bosses have all been away so I have barely everything to do and I end up not even doing the stuff I need to do and I'm so unmotivated to do anything and . . . Michelle said it's Dorito Syndrome -- you indulge but ultimately aren't fulfilled.  This makes a lot of sense (and reminds me of my tarot reading from WriterCon last summer about want vs. need, which is an idea I keep coming back to).

Michelle gave me a back/shoulder/neck/arm massage during discussion tonight, and she goes really deep and I enjoyed it.  I'd been thinking recently about trying out some of the local massage places -- though I also felt kinda stupid 'cause it's not like I'm particularly stressed.  I'm not sure if I'm touch-deprived or not (oddly, when I visited Smith people last weekend I didn't insist on much cuddling like I usually do) but it's entirely possible that it would be one tool [obviously not the only one] in helping me feel better.

When we sat down to dinner tonight my mood just lifted, which was somewhat surprising since there wasn't anything I would point to in particular, but it was nice.

Turns out Michelle can't hang out this Saturday after all, so that frees me up to do some erranding and possibly some room-cleaning (yeah, I'm lame and will probably skip out on ArtBeat).

I've been looking for black sneakers, and I really liked these ones, but I just noticed that they're part leather.  Gar.  So that means more shoe shopping.

In more productive news, I have bought my round-trip Europe tickets.  My travel plans for within Europe are mostly solidified except for getting from Barcelona to London for the return.  Meredith recommends EasyJet over RyanAir, so I'll be checking that out.

I got my workshop schedule for Convo (you give them three choices and get assigned two).  I'm going to the two transgender workshops.  Hopefully they'll be good.  (Yes, HomoCon SafeColleges has made me wary of workshops.)

I also went to the gym after work today.  I really should ask one of the trainers to make sure I'm doing the rowing machine correctly 'cause when I used to use it I felt like I really wasn't working my body at all.  Today I just did the elliptical and then left to pick up an ILL item at SOM/WEST and hang out reading for a bit before small group.

I think I am incapable of working out so hard I hurt the next day (which I think is a good thing, really), but I've definitely been trying to push myself.

1mi @ 11:15min
2mi @ 23:10min
2.55mi @ 30min
2.90mi post-5min-cooldown

***

Bedtime now.

[I started this entry during work today, and it took far too long to finish it tonight.  Sleepytime.]

Because I spend a lot of time hanging out with Methodists nowadays, I'm made particularly aware of what's going on in that denomination.  The newest issue is Drew Phoenix, formerly Ann Gordon, pastor of a Baltimore church.  Tiffany pointed out that across the board, Methodist churches in urban centers are failing, while this pastor has significantly increased both attendance and giving in this Baltimore church.  However, the fact that the pastor transitioned (complete with surgery) ftm is what's getting attention.

Recently Tiffany linked to a sermon on "Marriage, Divorce and Homosexuality."  This pastor has since posted about Drew Phoenix as well (as has Tiffany).

Tiffany's also been crossposting at 7Villages (which I am given to understand is specifically United Methodist), where a lot of more theologically conservative folk have been leaving blog comments.

There's a lot of hostility on both sides, and it makes me uncomfortable.

When I first became aware of transgender issues in college, my immediate reaction was to feel a disconnect between the God of love I believed and the idea that the body one was born with was truly wrong for one.  Though this of course begged the question as to where one draws the line on body modification; plus bodies are in fact often born "wrong" -- e.g., babies with holes in their hearts, cleft palates (which are sometimes "merely" cosmetic but can also be so severe as to interfere with eating).

Stuff like Toby's GenderQueer Monologues helped me grok trans issues a lot better [I also find myself returning to Amy Bloom's Kafka analogy in her book Normal], and I'm a libertarian at heart so on a secular level I definitely endorse people being able to do whatever they want to their own bodies.

However, it's still a very different issue than sexual orientation (though some of the activism legitimately overlaps) so it's troubling to see it all lumped under one umbrella (i.e. "GLBT").  I find this even more troubling in a Christian context where I think one has to do a lot more work (at the very least, different work) to reconcile it.

And while I'm sure a lot of the people who are opposed to Christian churches affirming GLBT folk have a lot of problematic baggage, I do believe that for the most part their opposition is rooted in a sincere belief that theirs is the correct understanding of God's intention for the world -- which is where the liberals are coming from, too, so it makes me sad (and frustrated) that a lot of the reaction from "my side" is along the lines of "You are mean and exclusionary."  Okay, I know I'm being unfair to the current discussion, and my take on this is so tainted by my history with left-right disagreements.  But I'm really sympathetic to the conservatives on this issue, am even sympathetic to the sometimes hostile presentation of those views (though I don't think it's a presentation conducive to dialogue or even of encouraging the other side to even listen to you).  And I'm definitely starting to sound insulting myself (I started to write a sentence about the "self-righteousness" of the left and realized there was no way that was going to end well.), so I'm shutting up and going to bed.

[Sidenote: xanphibian posted a reminder that if you post a link to something, that can be tracked back to you.  I do understand not wanting trolls on one's journal, and I admit to being weirded out when someone I wasn't expecting to read an entry leaves a comment, but it makes me sad that the world is such that we are so concerned about this, that the default isn't that people engage you in discussion.]

Other interesting thoughts (from my sexual ethics readings):

    A new anthropophagism does not desire God outside of our bodies.  The desire of God is not a spiritual longing, if what we call spiritual has no body.  This desire has to do with concrete bodies with emptied stomachs, with illnesses that are not controlled or cannot be healed, with bodies discarded by government programmes, with bodies abused and battered, enslaved bodies, disfigured bodies, bodies not fully observed, bodies that burn in desire.  Moreover, the desire of God has to do with lack, with the emptiness of our skin, with our search for other bodies, transgressing the norms of what is allowed or permitted as we construe fragmentary notions of love.  Our desire for God has to do with the rubbing of our skin, with the kisses we give, the caresses we receive, with the orgasms we have.
-from "Oh, Que Sera, Que Sera . . . A Limping A/Theological Thought in Brazil" by Claudio Carvalhaes in Liberation Theology and Sexuality, ed. Marcella Althaus-Reid (p. 60)

In his book Body Theology, James B. Nelson posits the statement: "We do not just have bodies, we are bodies" (p. 43).

***

Oy, a quick skim of the flist tells me that the recent murmured worries which were written off as a hoax have resurfaced with a different twist and apparent legitimacy.  I will examine further after some sleep.

Edit: Thank you, cofax7. "You are not entitled to absolute freedom of speech on the internet."