This makes me wonder if maybe I should take up meditation.

This totally made my day. Also, made me desire cupcakes.

Holy shit, wow. It makes me sad that she doesn't do music like this anymore. And she used to look like a normal person, neat.

yes i am laughing at my own joke

The cat came back without her collar again last night, so that's pretty awesome. THANKS PHIA, I AM A BIT BROKE BUT I CAN TOTALLY BUY YOU $20 COLLAR AND TAG SETS UNTIL YOU ARE FINISHED SOWING YOUR WILD OATS*. Some people are just so inconsiderate.

*She's spayed, but she's such a floozy I'm sure she's off flirting with every tomcat in town. DANCING and HOLDING HANDS and other such UNSAVORY ACTIVITIES

My parents' Thanksgiving table is getting fuller and fuller. Originally it was just going to be me, my folks, and my brother and sister-in-law and Sebastian. Cheryl, my mom's friend; her boyfriend, Ed; and her son, BJ were all invited as well, but were planning on doing things on their own. Then pacino got added to the guest list because her parents live in N.Dak and she's already going there for Christmas and two major holidays in small-town North Dakota are too many. Then i3endy hopped on the train, and now Cheryl, Ed, and BJ are coming. So um there will be a kids' table, and it will consist of me, pacino, i3endy, and Sebastian. Who should totally have a livejournal for conformity's sake what the hell.

Also I am dog-sitting for an old professor of mine while she's gone for the holiday, and pig-sitting for fairmaidenkate while she is in Iowa. Goodness this Thanksgiving will be fun-and-animal-filled =D

The First Thanksgiving, reenacted. Properly. With blankets covered in smallpox and small children dressed as Indians saying, "We got hosed."

It always frustrated me that I was told as a child the first Thanksgiving was all hunky-dory and pilgrims and Indians got along super well they were like bffs. Why didn't we do something like this video for a class project? Gee whiz.

My kitty is still limping =( but she actually had the desire to go outside today, unlike yesterday, so maybe she is not permanently traumatized.

Discrimination fail. (the same one I posted on facebook.) Apparently if you were married in Texas, it is no longer legal.

This one is a lot less funny. Another gay 15-year-old kid dead. Not by his own hand, this time.

heysciencefair sent me this episode of This American Life, where the second act (starts somewhere around 19 minutes) is about two transgender 8-year-old girls meeting each other at a conference. They're pretty adorable. Their parents are also interviewed and I got a little choked up listening to the whole thing.

In other news, Phia came back long after dark last night sans collar and with a newly acquired limp. She doesn't seem sensitive anywhere, so I'm pretty sure she just strained a muscle or something like that (although of course I'll obsessively watch her for the next couple of days anyway). Now she has a pretty new blue and brown collar with reflective flowers on it, and a brand new tag. Finally not an ugly gold one! Now it's an ugly black one. Why don't more places stock silver tags?

Ugh. Other than tonight (Office night at failu12e's apartment) and Monday (the Electric 6 concert at First Ave), no more driving to Minneapolis for awhile. I am too broke to afford this backandforthbackandforth. Although they're showing Ma Vie En Rose at Carlson tomorrow night aaaaaaand I really want to go =( WHY DON'T I LIVE IN MINNEAPOLIS ANYMORE gah.

Date:	2009-11-15 21:25
Subject:	Oh I love this.
Security:	Public
Mood:	delighted.

Volume up, bitches.

I should refrain from using language that reinforces women's inferior status in society like that. These are my thoughts after a weekend surrounded by fags I mean, queer activists.

Speaking of the conference, it went really well and you're a sucker if you missed it and you're a rockstar if you didn't =D fairmaidenkate and I have been dubbed Di and Kate Plus 8. The keynote speaker today, Eli Clare, was really wonderful - his speech was beautiful and now I'd really like to read his book. I didn't get to meet as many people as I would've liked, since we were pretty busy with volunteer duties all yesterday, but it was still a lovely time. I really wish I could go to Creating Change in Dallas this February, but I will probably (definitely) not have the money and hopefully won't have the time (cuz hopefully I'll have a friggin' job by then).

So now the play is done and the conference is done and it is back to full-time job searching. ...woo. Because is happening such a long time from now in April, but apparently there are already planning committee meetings, so I think I will get in on some of that action too. In addition to the endless frustration that is the job search.

Seriously, click the thing I linked up top. It will make you happy. It is only about 30 seconds long and it is still making me happy, 10 minutes later.

Date:	2009-11-12 16:10
Subject:	Cats made of airport, the DNA of 1.10pm
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper!

Agnostic love.

A 10-minute video that's totally worth watching, if not only for the calm and reasoned narration, then for the hilarious juxtaposition of the visuals with said narration.

Probably starting off with a title like "Putting faith in its place" isn't going to get a lot of people excited about listening to you and changing their minds about how they treat their and others' faiths (or lack thereof), though. Most of the video is pretty chill - it only gets accusatory in the title and for the last minute or so, really.

I just really like this. Especially the Buddhists being like, "Um, no that's cool, you keep it. Thanks though." Something about the entire situation just seems a little... misguided? In a cute way. Like a kitten trying to figure out a glass door. They just keep pawing at it... but seriously, at first I had to check and make sure this wasn't an Onion article.

Favorite quote: "Some of my best friends are Buddhist." (Just because it reads like an, "I'm not racist, but..." It's not at all in that context, but I still like it.)

Other favorite quote: "Of course, I love Judaism, and I think it's the greatest religion in the world. But to be honest, I've been practicing Vipassana meditation every day before minyan since 1993. So I get it."

Literally, I lol'd. Mostly when the guy at the ATM pushed the bat to the ground.

You guys, you guys should come to that conference I've been talking about. I sent some of you a facebook invitation with a generic message, and I apologize for that - you deserve better, my friends. You deserve GLITTER.

Date:	2009-11-01 18:14
Subject:	I just. I need to.
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative.

This is hard for me to say, but I need to share this with you.

"Privet, my friend!

Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever [link to a limited profile on some spam site asking me to send her a message] I do not know you yet and I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious – your heart, your soul. Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know. Believe me, nothing on earth is given without labour, even love, the most beautiful and natural of feelings.

Warm hugs
Valera B."

She is looking for a "charming, sincere, reasonable, and polite man with a nice sense of humor, who has no prejudice. And the main feature for a man is ability to love. When people love and are
loved their negative features become invisible and insignificant. I’d like a family created by both of us would be surrounded by understanding, wealth and a great love forever."

I will be that man for you, Valera B. I will GET YOU THAT GREEN CARD. And give you access to my bank acount. All ten available dollars of it. My money is our money.

I read this article about how the show 30 Rock has expanded the common vernacular. The article cited three phrases in particular: "blurgh", "lizzing", and "mind grapes". I'm pretty sure my friends and I were saying "blurgh" back in middle school? So I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit on that one. "Lizzing" I like; it's a cross between "laughing" and "wizzing" (and also a hit on Liz Lemon, the main character). And I think? it can be properly attributed to 30 Rock. "Mind grapes" is interesting and I like how people are using it:

“@syncretized flip flops? in this weather? you must have crushed some of your mind grapes.”
Oct. 19, 2009. seandammit

“is psyched about my thesis direction. Solid 2 days of mashing mind grapes that are turning into delicious thesis wine. I hope. Haha.”
Oct. 14, 2009, Kunal D. Patel

“Plant-able birthday cards? My mind grapes just turned into raisins!…”
Oct. 11, 2009, jubjub

I like even more the idea of Twitter as corpora. That gets me hot. The internet gets me so hot. There are all these PEOPLE and they feel the NEED to say all these THINGS and it is like, hello linguists! Have a DATA SMORGASBORD. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM

Granted, premeditated, typed word is totally different from extemporaneous speech, and there are so many special instances and circumstances on the internet that remove the samples even further from daily spoken conversation. But still. Sexy sexy data. EVERYWHERE. OH BABY.

...um. I went from being hot for the data to consuming it back to wanting to lay it down gently in my bed. I feel like that betrays some subconscious tie I have between eating and sex? I'm not a food fetishist, though. I mean, I guess I've never tried, but crumbs. Gross.

Aaaaaaaaand finally ( some more pictures of cute things: )

In other news, I went to a kickin' Halloween party last night dressed as a pirate and sword-fought with another pirate and D'Artagnan. And danced a lot and drank wop and looked at Minneapolis from the 35th floor skydeck of my friends' apartment building and generally had a jolly time. And was chagrined because we couldn't play pool, but only a little. P.S., if anyone, ever, wants to play pool, I will play with you.

Now it is time for brunch, and for me to stop rambling, so I BID YOU GOOD DAY, SIR.

SHE IS ANGERED BY YOUR LAUGHTER. DO NOT MOCK THE DEMON KITTY.

Yeah, that's her stuck between the sliding glass door and the screen door again. Well, I mean, same instance. Just more awesome glowy eyes. DEMON EYES.

came out to my mom today =D

It went really well. She said it's okay and that she just wants me to be happy and all the lovely stuff that you hope someone says when you come out to them. It was only minimally awkward! And now maybe she can help me handle the awkwardness when I come out to my dad, hoo-rah.

God, I wish my family talked about sex more. I think the longest conversation my mom and I ever had about it was, "'Di, have you had sex?' '...yeah.'" And then we talked for a couple sentences about how I should get the HPV vaccine. That was probably a year or two ago. I'm really glad I got a decent sex education through my own means when I was younger, because otherwise I could've ended up a preggers, STD-riddled floozy.

In other news, the play is going really well, the conference not so well. Set's almost done! =D No one will get back to me about donating/discounting food. =( Monday we get to install the set for reals! =D No one can donate anything because the economy is in the shitter. =( I did get in touch with the catering manager at the conference hotel today, and she sounded a little optimistic about at least being able to give us something. I hear back about that early next week. Cross your fingersssssss!

The same grandpa who sends me forwards about being a good Christian and how Obama's a terrorist communist darkie and the immigrants are going to overthrow us just sent me that internet joke about the "new generic names for Viagra" i.e. "Mycoxafloppin, Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and of course, Ibepokin". GRANDPA I AM YOUR DAUGHTER'S DAUGHTER WHAT THE HELL

So there's this fundraiser thing happening at Arise! bookstore in Uptown for some radical queer activists who are having some legal trouble. I heard about it from the minnesota_queer LJ community, and I commented asking if someone could tell us what happened to the people. One activist was arrested for throwing glitter at a neo-nazi, and someone was arrested and harassed about whether they were a boy or a girl by the cop. So there's that. But the real reason I'm posting about this is I said something about how completely absurd that is and someone responded with, "Yes, it was ridiculous. And the cops just pepper-sprayed anyone plus getting the one's around them who accidentally anyone for any excuse almost."

"I JUST ACCIDENTALLY" in its natural habitat in the wild omg! Probably like only dustinalfonso will appreciate that, but that's okay. At least someone will.

Date:	2009-10-24 09:54
Subject:	Treed cats and dinosaurs
Security:	Public
Mood:	sleepy.

Because I know you guys all like cats, most of you my cat in particular, and ( because I mentioned the possibility of photographic documentation the next time it happened. )

P.S. I really like the ambiguity inherent in coordinated constructions like the one in my subject, i.e. (adjective) (noun) and (noun) constructions. Are the cats and the dinosaurs treed? HOW WILL YOU EVER KNOW

Date:	2009-10-23 00:42
Subject:	86-year-old WWII vet on same-sex marriage
Security:	Public
Mood:	lovely!

This dude is awesome.

"The woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?"

I don't know if I like this because it's like a raver puppy seizing from a bad dose of ecstasy =(

but then again it is that pitiful puppy that can't roll over and this time it's RAINBOWY