He was a beautiful fiction

I was out at a restaurant with a bunch of my new friends here in California and I was suddenly struck by how awesome they all are. We literally made a list of queer movies to watch next weekend and then proceeded to come up with a "Gay Agenda" for the lulz.
I love that we sit around in the living room, watching a show, and point out when there is gay subtext. Just. I can talk about queer stuff and not feel like I am a Character. I am not trying to imply that any of my wonderful, amazing friends back home are homophobic, or offensive, or in any way not supportive. I love all of them profoundly and they are family to me. I've just never had a group of friends where I felt that I didn't have to tone down the rampant queerness of my conversations. Again, this is not because anybody in particular is intolerant. It's that it made me the eccentric one, or The One Who Always Talks About Gay. It was a quirk.

It feels really awesome not being eccentric anymore. Not that I don't freely admit that I am eccentric as hell. But I don't want to be eccentric about this.


Please don't comment defending yourself. I am not accusing anybody of anything. It's just a difference in interests and perspectives.

I WANT TO STAB MY PARENTS IN THE FACE.

WHAT KIND OF SICK TWISTED FUCKS TELL THEIR KID THAT THEY WILL NEVER, UNDER ANY TERMS, ACCEPT THEM. EVER.

BY THE WAY I JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM MY FATHER CITING FREUD, FREUD AS PART OF HIS RANT. I HAVE DEEP PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WHICH I MUST ENDEAVOR TO FIX. HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIGN OF DEEP ISSUES AND HE IS SURPRISED THAT AS SOMEBODY INTERESTED IN ANTHROPOLOGY I HAVE NOT UNDERSTOOD THE EVIL DEVIANT ROOTS OF HOMOSEXUALITY.

ALSO ONLY REAL MEN AND REAL WOMEN CAN HAVE REAL SEX.

ALSO FUCK THEM.

FOREVER.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO ANGRY IN MY LIFE.

I didn't post about LJ's gender!fail last night mostly because I was hit by a coordinated attack of those posts from all sides and I was pretty sure between them everybody on my flist was already covered.

I did send them a polite protest though and got roughly the same kind of response as everybody else. They say it was a mistake that was never meant to go live. The changes were not official yet, so on and so forth. I would like to believe them but I suspect they are merely doing a whole lot of backpedaling right now. Whatever the reason, I'm ridiculously glad that LJ won't be going through with it.

I never cease to be amazed at how vocal and determined fandom is. (I would hazard that most of the protests came from fandom, just because of demographics) It's pretty damn awesome.

So good job everybody. I'm proud of you. :D And thank you.

Randoms thoughts of the day-

• Today when I got on the train there was a woman obstructing more than half the door, making it awkward to get through (and only in single file). She continued to lean against the door the entire trip and would not move even when the train stopped. Even when we pulled up to big stops and 20+ people were rushing to get in/out she still didn't move. I was extremely vexed.
  Jesus people. Please learn to be courteous on public transportation. Or just, you know, in general. Why do people think the world revolves around them?
  
• I walked 50+ blocks in one go today! That on top of the usual daily errands and the long walk I took with Nancy probably comes out to just a little less than a 100 blocks! Holy shit my feet hurt.
  
• Tomorrow my teacher is having a professional come and teach us the dances that were popular in the court of Louis XIV. I think this is really super awesome and I would LOVE to go, but he said that woman should wear long skirts and heels and men should wear nice pants and jackets. The problem? 1. I don't even have a long skirt here with me 2. I have no desire to wear a skirt anyway 3. I don't own dressy men's clothing
  I would've asked a friend if I could borrow some clothes from them, but I don't know any small guys here in New York. Maybe I'll think of something by tomorrow...
  
• Is anybody else already seeing people in costume? Wtf people. Halloween is on Saturday.
  
• I found At the Bottom of the Garden by Diane Purkiss at the Strand today! So excited! I can't wait to read it! Sometimes The Strand pisses me off, but my best book finds are usually in some dusty corner of that store. I also found The Two Princesses of Bamarre, which I loved as a little kid, at some random little used bookstore the other day. I guess it's a good week for books.
  (Ask me about my first encounter with the Strand sometime and you'll hear a funny story. And by funny I mean one that makes me look stupid. Same thing, right? XD )
  

Saw Peter Seller's Othello the other day. It was... not that spectacular, but I had already heard that so I came in expecting the worst and hence was not disappointed. There was just nothing good about it. I didn't hate it. I just didn't care about what I was watching. It was being advertised as Othello for a post-Obama world, whatever that meant, but I have no idea how exactly they addressed that in the play itself. The casting choices? Most of the actors were black, except for Desdemona, Iago, and Roderigo. Othello was Latino. Maybe the point was to remove race from the equation?

They also combined Bianca and Montano (the governor) and quite possibly somebody else too into one character. It was all extremely confusing. And then in a scene that made me deeply uncomfortable Cassius tries to rape Bianca/Montano/whoever. Normally Cassius just gets into a brawl, but for whatever reason peter Seller felt the need to turn it into rape. It was not addressed afterward at all and I wonder what exactly Seller intended to achieve through that deeply unsettling scene. And it made it even more strange and uncomfortable that then Bianca was Cassius' lover and in other parts his comrade and I don't even know.

Yea so not really a fan. Also, not a fan of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Iago. He did steal the show though and Othello (John Ortiz) just could not keep up.


In other news I'm feeling better about myself today. This changes on a daily basis, so maybe tomorrow I will be back to crippling unhappiness, but for now I am feeling good. Basically, whenever I can force my mind out of all the boxes I feel good. The moment I start trying to find a label that fits most closely for me to conform to I start feeling like everything sucks forever.

Today is homework day. YEA HOMEWORK. Not. If I'm good and get everything done I'm reading (Re)Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin. I didn't love the first book, but it was good enough for me to keep reading. Mostly I'm interested in how McLaughlin is going to handle the story now that Jack is allowed to have a life.

If you're interested, it's about a girl who turns into a dude for 3-4 days a month. The boy part of her develops his own personality and identity and for the most part the book is about Jill trying to suppress her boy half with mixed results. There's nothing glaringly wrong with it, but I think that McLaughlin could have done way more with the topic. That's all.

Stealing meme from xturncoatxiii cuse it looks like fun.

Post one-to-two sentences of every unfinished piece of writing you have, fic or non; maybe it will motivate you to finish.

He looks dead when they bring him in. [Katekyo Hitman Reborn]

On the final day of celebration of the old year passing, the new king was chosen. I didn’t go to the ceremony. [original]

It was midday when Rowan’s world went to hell. [original]

“Samantha?”
Tam stood up from his plastic seat. The nurse looked up from her clipboard, frowned, and checked it again. [original]

Edit: Posting this particular snippet made me really uncomfortable and I couldn't get that feeling to stop nagging me as I went on to do other things this evening. ( I decided to stop and think about why. )
“Dawn, if I ask you a question, can you just give me a straight answer?”
Dawn opened one eye and peered up from where his head rested in Gabriel’s lap. “Well that depends on the question, doesn’t it?” [original]


Some others not worth mentioning because they're so old. Should delete those. That is all.


( I went to a talk at my college. )