What I Just Finished Reading

Nope.

What I'm Reading Now

Nothing.

What I'm Reading Next

No. Read this entry on Dreamwidth || comments

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck.

On the plus side: Have stopped sobbing hysterically. Am mostly just crying quietly to self.

I'm so scared.

I'm so, so scared.

Read this entry on Dreamwidth || comments

I would just like to say:

WHAT THE FUCK, CALIFORNIA?

Thank you.

That article I linked to yesterday? The homophobic one? It still makes me mad. So I wrote them out a comment. I'm sure no one will care, but it made me feel better to write it. I'm putting my comment here too, because, hey, why not?

( The original article, for your, um, edificationCollapse )

( My response is tl;dr under here...Collapse )


Apparently this makes me rant. I am clearly still mad about Proposition 8.

SFGate says Proposition 8 is passing, 52-48, with 95% of precincts reporting. Pretty sure that means it's over.

And my friendslist is all "whee! Obama!" and I've even seen "oh, Obama should do something federally to fix this," and, uh, guys? Even if that were *his* job, he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. (Which I knew when I voted. Sigh.)

I was born in San Francisco. I grew up on the peninsula. I went to college in Santa Cruz. Until I moved out here to Massachusetts for grad school, I'd never lived anywhere else, and, though I like living here, there's some days I really miss CA. (Especially when it starts getting all cold and snowy here.) I love California. I'm proud that I'm from California. And, guys, right now I'm really ashamed of California.

Fifty-two percent of California hates me. Me and a lot of my friends. And, like, I think about all the people I know, neighbors, all the people I went to school with -- do they hate me? (I mean, probably not. The results by county say that San Mateo County pretty much went no, 38-62. So it's all the people in the middle of nowhere who hate me. I guess that's better than having the people I know vote for it, right?)

And then I'm wondering what could have led to that difference. It's so close. What if that 4% was people who mistakenly thought "yes" would protect gay marriage? What if it was people who were really generally okay with the idea in theory but they'd been convinced it would mean their children would have to learn about queer people with no opt-out? What, did people think straight marriages would be banned? Were they voting randomly? The exit polls were showing 8 losing.

What the hell happened?

(I know, this is why we don't *let* the majority vote on minority rights. Because, uh, they don't protect them.)

(And, okay, the stupidest part is that I'm also upset because secretly I wanted to get married in California, right? Yeah, I thought that was pretty stupid of me. I mean, here I am in Massachusetts, for God's sake. Apparently I'm crying.)

It's not actually over yet, so maybe, maybe...

Yay! Obama!

There are currently seventeen posts on my friendslist saying so. I figure I should join in.

(And Question 1 lost in MA, thankfully. Now, of course, I'm busy refreshing sfgate.com to see how Proposition 8 is doing, even though I'm pretty sure they're not gonna tell me that until morning. I would also appreciate knowing whether San Francisco is going to legalize prostitution and name its sewage treatment facility (is the one by the zoo? or something else?) after George W. Bush. Oh, SF.)

I voted! Yay!

( More blither under the cut...Collapse )

And I got a sticker! I am so ridiculously excited about my sticker! They've never given me a sticker before ever! Ever! It's going on the gay-marriage lampshade. (Our lamp was collecting same-sex marriage stickers from Massachusetts and California. They fell off.)

To the people who have been jackhammering somewhere nearby for the past half hour: Please stop. I hate you. It is not even 8 am.

Also, I just dreamed that the undead were trying to vote. Apparently all the zombies were shambling around wanting to vote. For Obama, of course. Am not sure what this means.

I'm actually looking forward to voting tomorrow. It sounds fun. Mostly I just hope Question 1 here in Massachusetts doesn't pass. I think actually I'm more concerned about that than the presidential election. (I promised my mother I'd vote yes on 2 -- our "make possession of small amounts of marijuana be only civil and not criminal penalties" question -- because she said she'd vote no on Prop 8 if I voted yes on Question 2. I was gonna vote yes anyway, but she didn't seem to like it when I called it blackmail. Yeah, yeah, she was gonna vote no on 8 anyway as well.)

I wish we had the kind of voting where we get to pick our top X choices. (Runoff voting?) That would be nice.

I suppose I should stop taking the last word of whatever lysimache says and transitivizing it into the sentence "I'll _____ you!" Because most of the time it makes absolutely no sense, especially when the last thing she says is in Latin.

Also, today it was really cold. I reluctantly wore a scarf. And was still cold. But if I'd gotten out a hat, it would have been like the weather won! And we can't have that. Maybe watching shiny new Pros DVDs would make me feel better about the weather. (But they started to skip on my DVD player! And they're fine on my computer, so it's the DVD player. It is upsetting.)

Also also, I wanted to mention that I'm really enjoying the Donald Strachey mysteries. I will post more detailed thoughts about all of them when I am done, but in case you were wondering whether you should read them, the answer is yes. :)

(And why can I never get people into my shiny fandom obsessions! You all should watch Pros! It is awesome! Awesome, I say! You're missing out! Do I need to make a pimping post? Would it help?)

I figured I should post and wish everyone a happy NCOD. Still queer. I think I'm out of people to come out to.

Also, it is yayness that Connecticut is now going to have marriage. That makes three states that I could potentially get married in! Until November when the stupid people of California will probably vote to take theirs away! Boo! (I suppose I should call my family and make sure that, like, my brother's voting against it. I suppose I should call them anyway.)

Speaking of stupid things to vote against, you guys know that if you're in Massachusetts you really ought to vote "No" on Question 1, right? Selfishly, I enjoy all the services that Massachusetts uses its money to provide. Like roads. Having them. And clearing the roads in the winter and making sure they don't have giant holes in them. And also the part where they use their money to fund things like the university I attend and the school lysimache works at, both of which would lose, like, 60% of their funding if it passes. And then she would probably lose her job. And then we would be sad.

"So," you may have asked yourself, "are there any entertaining third-party candidates I could vote for in the U.S. presidential elections this November?"

Never fear! I have studiously combed through, uh, this Wikipedia article, and some party websites, to bring you a list of some other people you could potentially vote for, if they can get on the ballot in your state. You're welcome.

Your choices on the spectrum are the Crazy Right, the Crazy Left, and the Libertarians, who apparently reject the idea of the spectrum entirely. Um, okay.

On the Crazy Right, you can vote for the Constitution Party. My brother is actually a member, because he thought he was registering as "independent" but in fact was registering in the "American Independent Party," their name in California. Whoops. I personally am sad that the guy who wants to be called "Mad Max" didn't win the nomination.

You can also vote for the Prohibition Party! Did you know we still had one of those? I didn't! If you liked the 18th amendment, that was them. Apparently they've been around since 1869.

On the Crazy Left, the Greens (who, okay, aren't that crazy) haven't got a candidate yet, but they probably will soon enough. You also have three choices for socialists. Should you wish to vote your race and/or gender, the Party for Socialism and Liberation is running a Hispanic woman and the Socialist Party USA is running a white guy. I would not recommend the Socialist Workers Party, as their candidate is a resident alien, and thus cannot ever actually serve as president. I'm not really sure what's going on with that.

You've also got some independents. Of course Ralph Nader's running. You can vote for a fascist, a National Socialist (slogan: "the white people's candidate"), an artist, a wrestler, and presumably a bunch of other people who would also like you to write their name in.

There you go. Mostly I am amazed that non-citizens are running for president, and also that the Prohibition Party still exists.

There. I have exercised my civic duty. I had to enroll as a Democrat, but I guess that's okay. I'm sure there's some way I can go back to being unenrolled later.

I wish they gave us stickers.

Still kind of sick. Should probably go back to school tomorrow anyway. Ugh.

It's a good thing lysimache likes voting, otherwise I totally would have forgotten to go today. Kind of a boring ballot here -- most of the local offices were unopposed. Though I admit to deliberately not voting for the councillor at-large whose sign is stuck in the yard, 'cause that's annoying. I wish they mailed us sample ballots.

But I did get to vote for mayor, because the term is apparently two years. Crazy. There aren't actually parties on the ballot, so I created some (last time; the parties haven't changed any) based on the kind of supporters they get holding their signs. The incumbent was clearly in the Women With No Makeup Party. The other guy (and the other other guy, a write-in) was in the Middle-Aged White Guys In Suits party. Guess which one I like.

It also kind of weirds me out that there's no ID requirement. I coulda voted as anybody.

I went to bed at, like, 11, after watching Deval Patrick's victory speech as MA governor (wooooooo! except he, sniff, didn't mention the gay people.), which was fun. He is apparently the first Democratic governor of MA since Dukakis, and plus he seemed great during the debates, so this is all very exciting. Yay. I voted for him. And some Greens in the Green vs Dem races, but of course the Greens lost. But yay Deval. (It's funny how during the campaign, no one ever mentioned his race that I could tell, and as soon as he wins the news is all "second African-American elected as governor ever!")

The coverage of him winning was basically like a songvid. They started playing a sort of dramatic, triumphant song as he walked down the hall, then he got up to the stage and was shaking people's hands and the music was on the triumphant chorus and then they showed more shots of everybody cheering and it was basically a songvid. Then I realized that I had actually seen a BSG vid to this song ("What have you done today to make you feel proud?"). Heh.

Though, checking SFGate, I see California's got Arnold. Again. Boo. But at least they seem very excited that the Speaker of the House is the first woman and also the first Californian to do so.

I feel that my personal sense of voter efficacy is low. Sigh. Oh well. I'm sorry Kerry had a less successful campaign, but I hope the half of the country that voted for Bush is happy. They'd better be. It's not the end of the world, though. I'm not moving to Canada. Also, it really sucks that all eleven states banned gay marriage. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Though, hey, on a local level I feel a high sense of voter efficacy, as all the local people I voted for won. So yay local politics?

We went and saw umbo last night. We had Japanese food. I'd never been to a Japanese restaurant before; I assume mall Japanese food doesn't count. I tried some of Shell's salmon tempura (have never had tempura before) with avocado and lo, it was good. Mmm, salmon with avocado. It was very nice to see Shell again. That was fun.

Okay, so we sat around yelling at the election coverage a lot. My personal favorite moment was when the CNN news called Utah as Republican approximately 30 seconds after the polls there closed, with, um, 0% reporting. I guess they figured it was a foregone conclusion.

My other favorite moment, because I am six, was when I discovered that Idaho had a candidate for senator named Crapo, and furthermore, he had 99% of the vote. (However do you get that many votes when you're not running unopposed?) We were watching the coverage in Spanish by that point, because it was less depressing than the news in English (I should mention that I do not understand Spanish), so we decided to call him "Señor Crapo, senador de Idaho," which we find hilarious. Because we are six.

Also somewhere around here I observed, in what I thought was a brilliant and insightful statement, that "Spanish consonants sound different than English ones when [Jen is] speaking Spanish." Jen is still pointing and laughing. Hmph.

In other news, whee, there is a new House series on PBS (Regency House), and they're showing Frontier House tomorrow. Whee, people participating in historical recreation and whining. No, really, they're good shows.

Hee. I found Classic Arts Showcase on channel 26. I have no idea what station this is, or if they show it regularly, but it says Arts in the corner and there's some kind of operatic-type version of "Camptown Races." No, really. There's an orchestra and a chorus and everything.

Ah, the above-mentioned website informs me that this is community TV of Santa Cruz County, Classic Arts Showcase schedule as follows: Mon-Fri 12am-9am, 1pm-5pm, 10pm-12am, Sat 12am-6pm, 8pm-12am, Sun all day. Wow, that's a lot of Classic Arts. If that's accurate.

(For those who don't watch the show, it's basically classic MTV. I watched it a *lot* with Jen because (a) her PBS station shows it at the very early hours at which we are both awake, (b) it's probably the best programming you're going to find at that time of day, and (c) the local PBS station is pretty much the only thing her smaller TV can get without cable. It's a good show. They pick weird clips and strange music, so it's usually entertaining.)

lysimache, you want to come visit me now, right? Look how much Classic Arts Showcase I get!

(It's certainly better than whatever news is on the TV, right? My mother says it's all my fault for not registering in time. Apparently so does Jen's mother. Yes, yes, I really suck, I know. I suck. Thank you. Please don't make me cry. No, please, you can stop. I wanted to register in Santa Cruz and I think I got here too late to. Can I move to Canada now? Or maybe just out of California? Please?)

I wasn't going to say anything about today, because I couldn't think of anything meaningful to say that hasn't already been said by many people who said it better. I don't live in New York. Nobody I know died a year ago today. I think I cried then anyway.

I don't want to watch the news today.

I'd like to do what asilvahalo did, and just link my LJ posts for the day and be done, but I can't, because I don't have any. I would have if I had been anywhere near a computer. So I suppose now would be a good time to talk about how I heard what was happening then -- I didn't find out what happened until a few hours after I knew something had gone Very Wrong. I was keeping a paper journal, but I couldn't find it to type up, so I'll summarize.

( Read more...Collapse )

So that was my September 11 last year. And that is all I'm going to say.