Get Caught

August 2008


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slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Tue, Aug. 5th, 2008 10:46 am

One of my favorite things about

sf_dramais the random influx of really smart people and comments into the snark community.

For example, this thread.

In the abortion debate, as a pro-choicer taking the stance of arguing about the question of punishment should abortion be outlawed is one that I've not typically taken, but this thread really made me consider its uses, not just in the abortion debate but in regards to other issues in medical ethics and/or social rights. I'll have to do a fair bit of reading in regards to the law in a lot of different issues in order to do the argument justice, however, but that's a challenge I'd willingly take on.

( In case of eventual baletion, I'm copying the most relevant bits of the conversation here: )

Tags: politics, women's rights

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Sat, Jul. 26th, 2008 12:34 pm

I'm packing right now for the week-long poetry conference I'll be attending starting tomorrow. It's at Robert Frost's old place in Franconia, NH, so if any of my flisters are in the area, hit me up so we can try to grab dinner or something!

In attendance this year:

"Guest Poets (each present for a day) will be Cornelius Eady, Susan Howe, Maxine Kumin, Jean Valentine, Baron Wormser, and James Hoch, the 2008 Resident Poet. Festival Fellows (workshop leaders, present through the week) will be Patrick Donnelly, Linda Susan Jackson, Ilya Kaminsky, and Ellen Doré Watson."

If you're a fan of any of these poets and would like a third-party shout-out to them, I'd be glad to pass it along.

I'm uber excited. This is the conference that I got a scholarship to attend, so while I still have to pay my hotel bills I'll have some cash etc. to buy books and antique shop with. I'm still on the lookout for something "New Hampshire-y" to snag as a souvenier of my time here, maybe a print or a quilt or something.

Also, my B&B is right next to the World's Longest Candy Counter. I can hear my dentist groaning from here. :D

Tags: poetry

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Sat, Jul. 26th, 2008 02:18 am

I have sheets freshly laundered and hot from the dryer.

I am SO EXCITED about going to bed. :D

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Fri, Jul. 25th, 2008 05:14 pm

They both have names that start with B?

What Bush and Batman Have in Common

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past...

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans...

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

God, so much is D: about this article that I don't even know where to begin. Just... no. No, no, a billion times NO.

And don't know the source, but arxev just sent me along this fun little The Dark Knight related rumor:

""During the filming of The Dark Knight Heath Ledger kept a notebook to help him get in character, detailing all the things that he felt the Joker would find funny.

The first entry: AIDS.""

Tags: batverse, politics

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Tue, Jul. 22nd, 2008 10:45 pm

After being away from the week, these are things that I did not expect to come back to:

1.) Still no fucking pots or pans. WTF?

2.) Social fridge door still broken, meaning our big even will spill into personal fridges. WTF?

3.) MOTHERFUCKING MAGGOTS IN THE MOTHERFUCKING COMPOST BIN WHICH HASN'T BEEN TAKEN OUT IN A WEEK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

I can deal with many things, but rotting food is not one of them.

Maggots. Why did it have to be <i>maggots</i>?! D:

Tags: phi tau, slipstream smash

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Mon, Jul. 21st, 2008 10:52 pm

I read the first paragraph of this article thinking they meant lime the fruit.

Now I REALLY want a Corona.

Fucking dry county. *shakes fist* At least I'll be back in New Hampshire, land of legal booze, tomorrow.

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Mon, Jul. 21st, 2008 07:52 pm

My toes are French (tipped)!

AKA, today I had my first ever pedicure. *flexes toes*

Holy crap did the guy sand off a lot of the soles of my feet. He was a very straight-faced Korean man, but his brow did furrow slightly at the sight of my hobbit callouses, and he used twice as much of that callous-soak-off stuff as he did with the patrons flanking me in the salon.

The chair was a massage chair, but as it hadn't much padding it felt more like sitting on a transformer than actually getting a massage, but still, relaxing in its own way.

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Tue, Jul. 15th, 2008 03:28 pm

Fun in airports

So I'm flying home today, or at least trying to. I should have known that things were going TOO smoothly when it took me only five minutes to get from the bus stop, through check-in, and then through the security gates.

Of course, Murphey's Law being what it was, my flight was cancelled because X many number of welds on the metal mesh doors that hold the luggage in place in the cargo pay were snapped, and there is nobody at this airport certified to re-weld them. So instead of being home at 4:00pm to go shopping with my mom, my new flight leaves at 5:30 and I'll arrive at midnight. Joy of joys. At least this happened early in the day so that I don't have to spend the night at the airport, which I have done.

Also, because I'm a complete dolt and left my cell phone and boarding pass in the restroom, my mom has had extended conversations with both the woman who found my phone and the very stern security guard she gave it to. Despite the dozens upon dozens of fights I have successfully completed on my own, now I shall never be done with her nagging.

Aaaand just as I typed that, she called me, obsessing over the minutes exactly left until my plane boards. OI.

I will definately be using my meal voucher to get a drink in Minneanapolis during my layover.

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Sun, Jul. 6th, 2008 10:48 am

FLAMES. FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE.

"Official stewards [of the London Pride event] who were running the toilets at Trafalgar Square announced that I, and any other transgender or transsexual woman, had to use the disabled toilets and was not allowed to use the regular women's toilets. I pointed out to the stewards that I transitioned and had surgery before they were born; I was more polite than a polite thing. No dice.

I went and fetched a posse of transwomen and transmen and we made a collective fuss. Their response - and remember these were official stewards AT PRIDE - was to radio in 'we're being attacked by a mob of trannies! send backup'. They were joined by a policeman, who was a LGBT liaison officer, who claimed that we had to be able to show our Gender Recognition Certificates if we wanted to use the women's loos and got quite upset when I explained to him that I had been involved in drafting the Act and that it did not take away rights that existed before it. At one point he threatened to arrest us for demonstrating on private property - those loos belong to Westminster Council, so you are not allowed to make a fuss there. "

Tags: gender issues, women's rights, wtf

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Sun, Jul. 6th, 2008 12:24 am

Some letters

Dear Bra Companies,

WHY do you not make bras with racer-backs and/or wider straps?

Straight-on elastic banding hurts the shoulders of us smaller gals, as well. Plus, they slide all to hell.

No love,
Slippy

Dear Local Geography,

WHY do you not have any decent shopping? The only place to bra-shop is JC Penny's.

No love,
Slippy

Dear Fashion,

WHY do you insist on making such ugly dresses? All I want is something with a solid, pale color, sleveless, knee-length, something appropriate to wear to one of my best friend's wedding, and all you have on the shelves are crappy 70s prints and bizarre, bag-like dresses with weird elastic hems. DO NOT WANT.

No love,
Slippy

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Sat, Jul. 5th, 2008 11:38 pm

CAN'T. STOP. LOLING.

"Warning: Due to overfeeding some pigeons have become aggressive."

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Fri, Jul. 4th, 2008 07:17 pm

Happy Birthday, America!

slipstream_chan

Slipstream

	Thu, Jul. 3rd, 2008 11:16 pm

Things that I had never done until today:

Dial 911.

I was driving my friend Migdalia to the grocery store and we got stuck behind this car on Rt. 10 going 15-20 mph in a 35-40 zone. I grumbled but was okay driving behind them even at a snail's crawl, but then the car started wavering back and forth across the narrow lane, so I got on the car and called 911 because I didn't know the number for the local police and reported them as I saw them turn off onto a residential lane.

It felt a little weird, as I've never called the cops on someone, especially for a traffic thing, but the way they were jerking around the lane convinced me that it was better to be cautious about the whole thing. Migs agreed with me. 911 dispatch put me through to the local police dispatch, and we had a quick 3-way where I described the car, what they were doing, where they'd turned off, what I remembered of their license plate number, etc. They called me back later while we were shopping to let me know that they'd found the person driving, there were no signs of impairment, and that the driver and his wife claimed to be unawares that there was a minimum speed-limit and that they'd been driving home. I think they might have been an elderly couple, but I didn't catch a look at them.

At least people arrived safely to where they were getting, but given how quickly traffic stacked up behind them and how closely we were all crammed together for the quarter mile we were stuck behind these guys, had the weather been rainy like its been almost all of this summer there could have very easily been an accident.