| Date: | 2008-11-21 06:59 |
| Subject: | Y HALLO THAR |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  cold |
"Last updated 13 weeks ago." Hm. Well.
Anyway, I'm alive and thought I'd just stop by to share this snippet from an online application:
"
| | This position requires interaction with customers and co-workers. Are you still interested in this position? |
" For some reason, I find this terribly amusing. Anyway, carry on.
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Hi! Remember me?
That's OK, me neither. And I haven't read anyone else's LJ for months...it's not you, it's me.
I've been busy, with no good excuse for not posting, but I don't imagine most people are so much reading anymore, so that's all right.
I figured I might as well post my book update. It is not impressive, but reading is reading.
Izzy says PURRRRRRRRRRRR and seems to have surprised herself.
5. Like an Orange on a Seder Plate: Our Lesbian Haggadah, by Ruth Simkin
I wanted so much to love this book. Lesbians! Jews! Lesbian Jews! What could go wrong?
Well, quite a bit. I remain unconvinced that a productive response to oppression is bashing the entire oppressive group, and most of what I got out of this haggadah was Men Are Bad Like The Egyptians Were Bad. Plus there were some Scriptural inaccuracies (i.e. Miriam did not contract leprosy, and she did not die immediately thereafter; she was banned for seven days and then allowed back into the camp, just like everyone else with weird skin conditions was, and then lived out the full measure of her days). There are plenty of examples in the Torah of women's being oppressed without making stuff up. Maybe I'm not oppressed enough, and I'm sorry, Jewish lesbians, but this haggadah just did not work for me.
6. San Diego Women's Haggadah, by Jane Zones
This is more like it. This haggadah celebrates women without trashing men; we used quite a bit of this material in the haggadah we created for our own Seder. I have added this to my Amazon wishlist. :)
7. Sammy Spider's First Hanukkah, by Sylvia A. Rouss and Katherine Janus Kahn
Yes, I'm counting this and the next book separately. I am not a fan of our arachnid brethren, but between Sammy and Charlotte, I may come around. Anyway, there's a whole series of Sammy Spider books, and each one teaches both about Jewish holidays and about a different skill...this one's colors.
First Sentence: Sammy Spider shivered in his web high up on the Shapiros' living room ceiling.
8. Sammy Spider's First Passover, by Sylvia A. Rouss and Katherine Janus Kahn
See above. This one's about shapes. And you know why I'm counting these? Because our rabbi told me to read Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience In History, by Robert Seltzer, which appears to be over 800 very dry pages, and I need to keep myself entertained with other Jewish books, that's why.
First Sentence: Sammy Spider was fast asleep in his web high up on the Shapiros' living room ceiling.
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
This novel, told from the point of view of Christopher, a fifteen-year-old boy with autism, deals with Christopher's discovery of his neighbor's dead dog, his investigation into who killed the dog, and the aftermath thereof. One of Christopher's heroes is Sherlock Holmes (hence the book's title), but his investigation does not go quite as smoothly as Holmes's usually did. I thought the author did an excellent job with the narration; Christopher reports everything he observes but without any interpretation or emotion assigned to anyone's words or actions. Would Read Again.
First Sentence: It was 7 minutes after midnight.
Page Count: 1644. Sad, really; I used to be such a voracious reader.
Oh, by the way, I now have a star in my nose. The Bearded Lady in Provincetown is the most awesomest piercer anywhere ever.
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So, I check in with Westboro Baptist every so often (I assume most of my readership...do I have a readership anymore?...knows who they are; if not, they're the GOD HATES FAGS [and everyone else] people). They've been spending a lot of time lately thanking God (and I do not mean G-d, who I'm fairly certain wants no part of them) for the many natural disasters worldwide. Said disasters are, of course, caused by tolerance for Teh Gay.
I just can't help but wonder...if this were true, why are Massachusetts, New England in general, California, Canada, the Netherlands (Amster Amster shh shh shh!), and other actually gay-supportive places escaping unscathed? Shouldn't California have fallen off the continent when they legalized same-sex marriage, and shouldn't Boston be entirely underwater and possibly also on fire by now?
I realize logic has no place in fanaticism, but really.
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| Date: | 2008-05-04 13:44 |
| Subject: | 50 Book Update |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  literate |
4. Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends, by Anita Diamant
So I'm SUPPOSED to be reading As a Driven Leaf and The Red Tent, but for whatever reason, this title has been pulling at me ever since I heard of it, and I finally checked it out of our temple's library.
I need a copy of this book. I found it to be very validating of many of my confusions and hesitations on this path. Of course, no book can take the place of talking to people, but reading this has given me more confidence to bring up questions and concerns since I don't think I'm the only proselyte to have thought these things before.
Also I now feel better about being upset over Christmas last year.
And one of our rabbis and our cantor are credited in the acknowledgments. Of COURSE they are.
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So last night, I provided entry music for the last Dyke Night at Toast in Somerville. (They're looking for a new permanent home.)
I didn't figure there would be any photos on the site yet, so I searched Flickr for "dyke night".
I didn't get any photos of last night.
I did get plentiful photos of evenings in Amsterdam.
But of course.
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| Date: | 2008-03-29 21:52 |
| Subject: | concerned now |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  worried |
me: Oh crap, we have rehearsal on my birthday.
eeka: We may not be back by then. Or we may be injured.
me: *worried look*
eeka: *giant grin*
Oh. No.
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| Date: | 2008-03-02 12:07 |
| Subject: | 50 Book Update |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | literate |
3. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel H. Pink
An interesting book about why left-brained, logical, linear skills are soon to be insufficient for American workers to be assured of employment in today's rapidly changing society and the increasing role such skills as Empathy, Design and Story (among others; author's capitalization), which he considers right-brained attributes, are playing in both the working world and people's private lives. The author's hypothesis, with evidence, is that the three A's of Automation, Asia and Abundance are moving us from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, in much the same way that society moved from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, and that those who can't draw on both sides of their brain will be left behind.
It's an easy read, and it's full of exercises for developing the right brain (he does allow as how the right-brain/left-brain division isn't all that simple, but he generalizes for the purposes of the book) and learning to see the world in new ways. It's on loan from a friend, but I might need to copy the "portfolio" pages that have these exercises in them.
Page Count: 1076
In other news, I've elbowed Loki in the head three times and punched him in the nose once, all in the last half hour, and he's still glued to me purring.
No, I don't beat up the cat on purpose; he likes to sit by my side right where I can't see him and wait until I notice he's there. The fact that this often involves his sustaining some kind of minor head injury doesn't seem to bother him much.
There is no other other news.
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No, we are NOT calling the as-yet-hypothetical queer money site "Where's Bruce?" Or anything like that.
Clairee Belcher: All gay men have track lightin'. And all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve.
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| Date: | 2008-02-20 19:56 |
| Subject: | oops |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  chagrined |
" | #4 Bulk Bill Distribution | | | Taking any large quantity of bills, entering them into Where's George?, and then depositing them into a bank or any other financial institution or dumping them at any merchant is a strictly forbidden method of bill distribution. This could cause the Bank management to question your actions, refuse the bills, and generally cause trouble for Where's George? and all its users. It is also clearly not Natural and Geographic Circulation as defined in Guideline #1. Should you choose to mark bills, your actions may arouse suspicions of people who are unfamiliar with this interpretation. Of course, the larger the quantity of bills presented to such people, the greater the likelihood for them to question your activities. Where's George? offers no assistance to users who find themselves in such situations. Any user who is detected as making bulk deposits or bill dumping will have their account terminated. |
Note to self: Read guidelines first. I only marked a couple, but they are going into the bank because dude, that's where my tips go. Shhh, don't tell.
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Does anyone else (besides me and eeka) remember the "Queer Money" web site? It recommended marking all your money in such a way as to indicate it had passed through the hands of a queer person. Google is failing me, and I'm wondering if the idea has gone dormant, and if so, if I should resurrect it.
This comes to mind because 1) I just joined wheresgeorge.com [because I need another time-waster in my life] and 2) a whole lot of dollars pass through my hands. I have just written "Queer Money" on some of them, but a web site would be pretty cool.
Any thoughts?
(Also, wheresgeorge doesn't sell stamps any more. I may need to acquire one. By which I mean "have one made".)
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We have a stuffed plush Torah. It smiles at us. That was amusing enough, but it's got nothing on this.
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2. Seasons of Our Joy, by Arthur Waskow
The second book our rabbi recommended we read (and here I clarify that I'm converting; eeka's reaffirming, since she's already Jewish), this discusses the history, traditions, observances and new thoughts about the Jewish festivals and their cyclical nature. I learned there are holidays I hadn't heard of (specifically Lag B'Omer), and I found out why holidays are currently observed in the way they are, which has made many things click in my brain that were just kind of random bits of trivia before. Since the book is 20 years old, the very end has to do with new Jewish observances and prayers concerning the possibiity of full-scale nuclear war, which made me think about how that threat hasn't gone away, but the pervasive fear doesn't really seem to be there anymore. Or maybe I'm just not noticing it...
Page Count: 745
(The page count includes books in progress; I always have three books in progress. It seems to be working reasonably well, rather than like it was last year where I'd have seven or eight books in progress and not be getting very far with any of them.)
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| Date: | 2008-02-15 10:48 |
| Subject: | FINALLY |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | dorky |
I have been trying to remember a certain book for years. I finally found it...
Outside, by Andre Norton
I read this when I was eleven and on an exchange program in France, the less said about which the better, but the memory of the book popped into my head a few years ago, and I could not find it for anything. I was pretty sure it was by Andre Norton, since that was around the same time I was reading her Star Ka'at books and her "(Various Word) Magic" (e.g. "Octagon Magic") books.
Yes, a closer look at the cover art shows that the little girl is holding a stuffed fox, which is mostly what I remembered..,a sealed/domed city, a stuffed fox, and a little girl who wanted to know what was outside the city (hence the title, hi).
Hm...the Boston Public Library has it, but it's in "special collections, in library use only."
OF COURSE IT IS. Although since I owe them an embarrassing amount of money in fines, perhaps this is just as well.
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TaB (the pre-Diet-Coke Diet Coke) has been around since 1963.
Huh.
This reminded me of Like Cola, which wasn't really very likable, but I'm amused that the article contains links to other well-known cola flops.
Which in turn reminded me of Chelsea, which I'm the only person I know who remembers, and how the hell did they get away, even for a short while, with marketing a soft drink containing alcohol? Apparently, Bloomington Illinois must have been a test market, because I'm sure I drank some of this stuff. It was pretty good. I don't know if I drank the pre- or post-extra-alcohol formula, but when I was small, my dad always let me sip his beer* if I asked, so my parents weren't particularly hung up about giving children alcohol.
*Crappy American beer, such as Miller High Life or Budweiser. I was satisfied with a sip. Now I won't drink the stuff, since I learned about GOOD beer.
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| Date: | 2008-02-09 08:00 |
| Subject: | Shabbat shalom |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  hopeful |
I like our rabbi.
She was more concerned that I was frozen and flustered than that I was half an hour late for our meeting (damn lack of cabs); she reassured me that I'm on the right track, even though I haven't finished the books she told us to read a couple months ago and I know about five letters of Hebrew, and she justified the fact that I currently work on Shabbat, even though I wasn't trying to justify it myself. Reform Judaism: where the rabbis come up with reasons for you why what you're already doing is really probably OK.
Also she gave me two new books to read, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and As a Driven Leaf by Maurice Steinberg. Both historical fiction...I actually think we might have a copy of The Red Tent somewhere in the house, but I might be thinking of The Last Days of Dogtown, which I know we have. Either way, I have both books from the temple library, and the librarian renewed the seriously overdue book we have (Seasons of our Joy, by Arthur Waskow) without getting all librariany at me.
Loki's huddled on my lap, purring like a freak. How approximately four pounds of cat can make approximately 100 decibels of purr, I do not know.
(dB level exaggerated for comedic effect, but he is LOUD. Dexter's four times his size and doesn't purr like that. Izzy sometimes does.)
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| Date: | 2008-02-06 11:46 |
| Subject: | election fun |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  calm |
We were listening to Super Tuesday* results come in on NPR last night, and the commentators were talking about how determining what candidate gets how many delegates is like a three-dimensional game of chess.
eeka: So the election is really a big-ass game of Stratego.
Me: Yes. And whoever wins gets to spend the next four years playing a big-ass game of Risk.
*Pronounced "Syooper Tyoosday" by Robert Segal.
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Loki and Izzy are both on my lap. This makes typing difficult.
So...the Patriots lost, at the last minute. There is no joy in Beanville. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other; I really only like the Bears for football.
But...we live close enough to downtown that we heard helicopters all evening. I looked out the window after the game was over (tracked the play-by-play online), and I saw three...THREE...helicopters with searchlights circling downtown/Fenway/Mission Hill/thereabouts. And those were just the ones I could see.
And then there were plenty of sirens.
I do not understand sports culture. Maybe it's because I grew up a couple hours from any major sports teams (halfway between Chicago and St. Louis; we watched the Cubs and da Bearssss on TV, but we were not a big sports family). Yes, I know the Super Bowl is a Big Huge Game, but it's a GAME, isn't it? Why does it need heavy police presence in a town in which it's not being played? What am I missing here?
(Same question about the Red Sox, I guess; definitely same question about college teams and riots, although I can chalk a lot of that up to youth and cheap beer. And then we can get into my rant about how certain athletes and Hollywood actors and musicians are grossly overpaid, and they're getting HOW many millions to do WHAT, and I work with people who choose to devote their lives to helping other people's kids learn to talk and walk, kids whose Early Intervention services might be the most positive attention they'll ever get from an adult, and what is WRONG with American society, and never mind how many people sleep in doorways every night, and don't even get me started on celebutantes.)
I think I need to go to work now.
That said, everyone who's reading this who a) is 18 or over and b) lives in a state with a primary tomorrow...VOTE DAMMIT.
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| Date: | 2008-02-01 16:59 |
| Subject: | argle bleargh |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  don't feel good |
It's been years since I've been sick enough to basically stay in bed all day. I got up about an hour and a half ago (that would be 3:30 PM, for those of you keeping track), checked some stuff online, sent out an e-mail to my students telling them they're off the hook for tomorrow (which wreaks havoc with my make-up lesson plans, but no matter), started some laundry, petted Dexter, took DayQuil, sat here going OW and hacking up a lung, and I'm ready to go back to bed.
It's also been a long time since I've had a three-digit fever. Do Not Want.
On the bright side, eeka appeared mid-day with unexpected Burger King for me. Fortunately, although I'm not in any way hungry, I'm also not nauseated, so it was delicious.
But no temple tonight, no teaching tomorrow, probably no eeka's co-worker's birthday party tomorrow night. Oh, and dammit, possibly no Israeli dancing on Sunday, if this doesn't go away.
Am drinking fluids and think I"m doing everything I'm supposed to, probably heading back to bed soon. Again.
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Scenario 1:
1AM. In bed.
Molly: *singing and dancing*
eeka: *mutters something*
Molly (cheerfully): I'm awake!
eeka (asleep and not so cheerfully): SLEEP OR SHUT UP.
Molly: Shouldn't that be "and"?
eeka (still asleep): GO.
Molly: Bye!
Scenario 1.5: The next morning
Molly: "Sleep or shut up"?
eeka: What?
Molly: You said that last night.
eeka: Really? I don't remember. I'm sure you needed to. I was sleeping!
Scenario 2
eeka: You put things in weird places. There were pencil toppers in the snack bag.
Molly: Oh, those were in there because...
eeka: I know WHY they were in there. That doesn't make it right.
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| Date: | 2008-01-24 12:02 |
| Subject: | um |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | dorky |
I just caught myself trying to teach a violin lesson via GChat. While the student's at work, I'm sure.
Must. Stop. Teaching. Unnecessarily.
(Although she just told me she just played Twinkle for her officemates. Adult students are awesome.)
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amused
aggravated
curious
silly
sleepy
annoyed
weird