(no subject)

[sapote]

1) Around 2 p.m, all the sudden, I was well again. I got up and did yoga. And then I spontaneously did pushups. And my first thought was, "I've been replaced by a Cylon. This is awesome!"

2) One of my main goals when I got this lj was to keep my head down and avoid wank (because I am Polite and Southern) but this week I've been feeling very: please, SGA fandom, do not implode yet. I just got here!

3) Who wants to see some pictures of somewhatmiddleaged!Callum Keith Rennie laughing? I do! I do!. Link is to scriggle's livejournal, which I hope s/he does not mind.

He has dimples.

4) The AU I was not going to write is a concussion grenade and a FOX news scrollbar away from completion. I spent about three hours yesterday under a tree scribbling away at it, which was very pleasant, because most of the rest of my life happens at my desk right now. Finals, please get here so you can be over and I can turn off my computer and leave my house. Or at least pretend I'm going to. I guess I've only got one more semester to enjoy wacky finals behavior, so I might as well embrace it.

I enjoy how "writing enormous piles of fic" is something that stays on my to-do list during finals, but "go to grocery store ever again" and "delicious life-giving sleep" are things I just don't have the time for.

5) I spent a little too much time with my linktracker today, and do you know that about one in two hundred story-readers leaves a comment? For some reason I always thought I was one of those Few Special Lurkers. No, it turns out we are legion!

Have a lovely Tuesday, everyone.

Comments

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

Sure I want gmail, I will just need to spend a day learning how to use it. And by a day I mean a full 24 hours, I am heavily technologically inept and am still working out lj (3 years) and googledocs.

As for the homework, that is what I am doing now *shifty eyes*. Well, I am really. Right now I am analyzing the script of Amadeus to prove that the key tension in the play is Mozart's daddy issues, both his relationship to God and his actual father, while at the same time explaining that his giggle is in fact a more powerful motif than the music, since every time he does it he alienates someone else who should support him. It's an annoying harbinger of doom!

It's so true that Unitarians can sense each other. And also very scary. Man, coffee hour. When talking to other unitarians (when we'd sit and the only of the principles we could remember was respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and maybe the one about the earth because they were all queer identified hipster pagans) I would always say that what we really believed in was the holy trinity of acronyms, committees, and coffee. I came up with this when I was on the RRYSC (pronounced risk) subcommittee on streamers while drinking coffee and wanting to take my own life.

Have you ever seen Monty Python's life of Brian? Maybe? Wel I can continue as if you had. You know how the People's front of Judea (not the Judean People's front) was always searching for quorum and taking votes before doing anything? Well, I was actually crying I was laughing so hard. Because, well, I recognized it; I felt so much kinship.

Sometimes I don't understand why you'd convert away from UU, mostly because (and I don't know if this is everywhere) you could pretty much believe any religion you wanted and just drop by for the potlucks (we had killer potlucks). And I think we're kind of a cult in the same way hardcore fans are. We tend not to talk about it much, then we figure out the others secret and then we're all over them. I mean, there really aren't that many.

Unitarian dynamics are very much small group dynamics, which is definitely what I see here. My dad's a unitarian and recently a secret committee was set up to push the minister out. It created much bad blood and angst. Especially when others found out about it.

And HELL YES have I read that story. It is, in fact, one of the five that I throw at people when I'm trying to entice them over. I just wish there was more Zelenka/Rodney fic (let me specify that it be good), since itis my favourite pairing. I have noticed a trend in myself though where I do not read my favourite pairing. Maybe I am too picky?

Good luck with your homework.

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

italics, why do you hate me?

Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Back in the day I seem to remember I forgot to close an href once and it ate the whole page. I don't think that can happen anymore?

Invite sent! (and if anyone else is reading down this far and really wants a gmail invite, I've got bushels.)

See, I thought that skit was about the Unitarians, and then I did a tiny little stint as a protester-type activist. SO MANY MEETINGS. I think Unitarians got that from the activist strain, not vice-versa. Subcommittee on streamers wins a little in that headdesky way, though. Were you the chair? Or did you use consensus process? I must know.

You can, incidentally, convert away from UUism by getting Saved by Jesus. It's the only way I know, and living in the Bible Belt, I know people who have done it. Which worries me a little. I suppose it's partially being a slasher that makes me question why people would go from the "yay men kissing!" camp to the "Jesus watches you in your pants" camp. Oh, people. So intriguingly confusing!

and Unitarians -> helped me understand anarchists who -> are eerily like fen. A subculture is a subculture is a subculture, I guess. Today I was thinking about the BNF debate as performed by anarchists ("If there's no hierarchy, why is everyone so excited that [given famous author] is here?") and I was giggling.

Everyone should know that story. It is the dorky scientist story of LOVE. ::pets Zelenka::

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

I hit backslash! I did, I really did. *weeps* I got the invite, and the many emails from gmail, but they want me to do things like open excel and copy paste stuff, and I just do not have the time or the patience. Ok, I have confessed my ineptness, so here are some questions.

How do I convince word that I am in Canada and do in fact use words like favoured with a u? Aka change the language

b)now that I am switching to gmail, how do I tell lj that?

Now on to actual replying.

Everything at my church was Roberts rules of order. Everything needed quorum and a seconder and everything. It drove me barkers.

The streamer thing is you know, ridiculous, but it was only because the event was for three hundred people and apparently many streamers are made by blind slave children who are not fed, and there were just some coordination nightmares, so they made this midget sub-sub-committee to deal with the badness. It was me and two toher bitter women who felt that no one else could do it right. It shouldn't have, but in a weird way I was proud that they thought me competent enough to select me. It was like getting praise from Rodney. Rare, and not all that complimentary. The real funny stories come from the same conference, where I chaired the food committee (they always put me on committees because I could bludgeon people to my way of thinking and no one would expect it. And I hadn't learned to say no. You know how it is) and we had to put together meals for people on a)blood type diets so they couldn't eat salad, b) vegans, and c) people allergic to gluten and d)combinations of more than one of the above. The anti-salad vegan allergy people were my favourite. This is just tooo ridiculous for me to make up.

I think we definitely got it from the activists. I was reading the Spiral Dance by Starhawk (required reading apparently) and in the prologue she said that quakers and unitarians bred for activism. I laughed really hard.

"Jesus watches you in your pants" snerk I've also never understood why someone would go from, yay, everybody's ok, to I HATE YOU JUST CAUSE AND THIS ALSO MEANS I HATE MYSELF AND OH GOD I HATE THE WORLD PARDON MY BLASPHEMY. It makes the sense that doesn't. But as a good Unitarian I must respect their choices.

Random note, did you ever have the debate in your church about whether you were more Unitarian or Universalist? It used to happen all the time and end in the equivalent of a flame war, which was really more of a cookie and coffee war. The worst thing a UU can do.

OMG world of yes to the no hierarchy thing. Joke:
How many anarchists does it take to change a lightbulb?

None, anarchists never change anything.

Come on, it's funny.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

I just realized that I should have specified that it was 300 youth at a more than thousand person conference. And since all my planning was for the youth, I was really fucked over as far as getting what I needed. I'm not still bitter years later. Really. Also, do you think I could get away with using fucking-over to describe the action of what Salieri does to Mozart?

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Can I ask which conference? Or should I save that for the platform change? which we are totally going to figure out, because the comments are getting narrow again.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

Weird, I seem to have forgotten the actual name (repress the trauma?) but it was our district meeting. Alberta and the Northwest territories! It had a really fancy name. And this is nothing narrowness to the other thread before we moved over.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

How many UU youth group members does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Do you know that the Quakers have that joke too?

How many anarchists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Um, I'm calling a point of order, if you have a question you can get put on the stack.

(stack is the speaker's queue if you're using some sort of modified Starhawkian process. If there's ten people in the room, there are twenty people on the stack. YES it kills jokes to explain them.)

How many anarchists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Depends on how the lightbulb feels about polyamory?

How many anarchists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
We CAST OFF THE CHAINS of electricity's imperialism. We will light the darkness with the PASSION IN OUR HEARTS.

::cue guitar riffs, and also sitting in the dark a lot::

How many anarchists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One. With a lightbulb she built herself out of an empty peanut butter jar and some masking tape.

Googletalk didn't make me use excel! Which is good, because I don't have excel. Will it let you sign in? We do need to pursue some change in platform, because look at the size of this thread. We are typing ninjas!

Vegan allergy anti-lettuce people FTW. "I can eat this one bean which only grows on the south slopes of Kuola Lumper! And sometimes a thimbleful of springwater." I have every sympathy for people with the great big food allergies, but I think when God took soy and wheat off their menus s/he/Ineffable Source of Being essentially wrote them a permission slip to eat steak.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

We called that the secondary speakers list. I still found the joke hilarious, since don't they say that funny is in truth? Or something?

Though I do take umbrage against the youth group one. My youth group was hella active as far as protests, organizing things and reusing activities (because it's wrong that people forget the other two rs).

You know who else casts off the chains of imperialism? Emo kids who sit in the dark and cry alone. No, no, I poke fun because I love. I do, really.

Tries to clarify and probably fails. No, it wants me to use excel to get my contacts list, which you are on, so I feel thwarted.

Halelujah to steak! I love the permission slip line, totally going on a sticky. My older sister is allergic to what feels like nearly everything, so I really believe in accommodating. But seriously, I just wanted to stab these people in the face.

We really are typing ninjas, but I'm still trying to maintain that I'm working with determination on my Amadeus thing, so I was planning to figure some of this stuff out tomorrow. I think the verbosity comes from UUism and how there are just so many stories to tell. But really, I think it would be a point of personal privilege for me to really figure out gmail, which would be out of order at this time. Bonus point, though: all the UU stuff really prepared me for mock UN.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

actually the second half of the UU youth joke is "they screw in sleeping bags in church basements". It might be a regional thing. And I don't know anyone who actually did, but we keep the legend alive.

Awesome, you do of the homework and I'll do of the sleep. Good luck with Amadeus and also with the technical stuff!

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

Um, we had probably three rules at every youth con and one was about not zipping sleeping bags together, but it fell under the no exclusive touching thing. It was more, if you're going to have sex, it had better be an orgy so no one is excluded. I did definitely get the feeling that sex was a problem more in the adults minds than anyone else. Sleep well.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I think there's some Bible Belt nfluence going on, because some parents at some churches I've been to are really worried about that sort of thing. Which just puts it on everyone's radar, and I suspect causes more problems than otherwise.

Wow, that was forever ago. I feel old.
I hope your homework went well!

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

I've never actually figured out why parents REALLY care about the sex thing to the point of trying to outfox wannabe sexers. I mean, all they do is convince their children NOT to tell them, it doesn't stop them from the sex thing.

As for the homework, I'm still at it... a whole day later. I expect that it will take me many more days.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

no, no, emo kids are casting off the patriarchy when they do that!

It would be nice if I'd spent even enough time in dirty!angry!college student! land to call myself a Democrat with a checkered past, but as is I'm just a Democrat. sigh. Oh, how the self-righteous have drifted slowly back to earth.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

No! You must resist the capitalist dogma of 'drifting to earth'. Also, as a bonus, you get to defy the law of gravity. It would make you a true rebel. And you know, it's never too late to be a democrat with a checkered past.

Re: Backslash! Hit backslash! Before it's too late! :-)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Never too late? Man, I hope when I'm forty I'm absolutely sure of the same things I was ABSOLUTELY SURE of when I was eighteen. Except, when I'm forty, I expect there to be PROOF, as opposed to a vague suspicion.

Thus four years of college, I guess. Because if I'm wrong about NAFTA, I want to know now.